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21st Century Learner: Be a Critical Thinker

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 21st Century Learner: Be A Critical Thinker
Rizky Nurul Hafni, rizkynurulhafni@upi.edu, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
Abstract
In the 21st century, people have to have the higher-order thinking skills called 21st-
century learning skills to solve new problems of the modern world. Be a critical
thinker is one of a kind the higher-order thinking. ‘Being able to think’ means that
student should know how to apply their knowledge and skills they developed during
learning in real life. Then, this paper focuses on what the competencies that should
have for the student to be a critical thinker. Data were collected by using the
literature study method. This method aims to gather all information from all written
documents such as article journals and books.
Keywords: 21st-century learning skills; higher-order thinking skills; critical
thinking skill
1. Introduction
The 21st century is indicated by the improvement of knowledge and
technology. These improvements have been changed the paradigm in education
in which education should be able to foster students' skills.
Hood (1999)s defined the new world as; “In the 21st century, we have a
much better understanding of how things work, or how they don't work, to a
prescribed set of rules. Societies, parents, the workplace, students, are all
different. So are the problems. The answers, or the rules, need to be different”
(Sahin, 2009). Hence, nowadays students are required not only to think but also
have a higher-order thinking skills.
The most prominent 21st-century competencies is a critical thinking skill.
Critical thinking skill refers to one of the learning and innovation skills in 21st-
century learning. Because the world makes progress in global paradigm, there
is a massive change in the framing of references about the ways of life, work,
society and how every individual is viewed and organised. These force students
to be more competitive and intellectual in facing every problem in their real
life because the real-life issues are involved, so students are required the
complex solutions obtained by using critical thinking as a higher order thinking
process.
 In learning critical thinking, students will be lead to develop their skills such
as a higher level of concentration, more in-depth analytical abilities, and
improved thought processing (National Education Association, 2014). Because
these opportunities, they will know how to use their knowledge and skill by
thinking critically.
Furthermore, critical thinking in 21st-century learning will prepare students
for the global era with high-speed communications, complex and rapid change,
and increasing diversity, so they can use these multiple strategies to solve a
problem, consider differing points of view, and explore with many modalities
(NYSUT, 2015).
Similarly DeVries and Kohlberg (1987), McDavitt (1993), and Son and
VanSickle (1993) cited that teaching focusing on critical thinking as a higher
order thinking skill can provide relevant life skills and offer extra favor for
helping students in improving their knowledge, lower order thinking and self-
esteem (King, Goodson, & Rohani, 1998).
Therefore, nowadays, every teacher must focus on how to improve students’
critical thinking. The competencies of this skill will be explained more detail
in the following section.

2. Defining critical thinking skill

The term ‘critical thinking’ means making reasoned judgements. Critical
thinking is defined as the skill of making a decision based on the right reasons
because there is the skill of evaluating arguments to compose good cases in real
life (Rainbolt & Dwyer, 2012).
According to Facione (2011), the ability in interpretation, analysis,
evaluation, inference, explanation and self-regulation is the most basic concept
of critical thinking. Similarly, Beyer (1995) viewed critical thinking as a
disciplined manner of thought in which a person can use it to evaluate the
validity of something (statement, news, ideas, arguments, research, etc.). These
comments accordance with Lewis and Smith (1993) as well as Perkins and
Murphy (2006), they cited that critical thinking asks a student to use a new
information and manipulated knowledge and information in order to get a
reasonable responses to new situation (Firdaus, Kailani, Bakar, & Bakry,
2015).
To Rudinqw and Barry (1994), critical thinking refers to a process of
rational and logical thought providing a set of standards and procedures for
analysing, testing, and evaluating them (Piaw, 2004). Next, Siegel’s concept
also emphasises that critical thinking has a relationship with rationality because
critical thinking refers to be appropriately moved by reasons’, and to be rational
is to believe and act by reason (Rosnawati, Kartowagiran, & Jailani, 2015).
Moreover, Fisher and Scriven (1997) expressed the critical thinking as an
interpretation and evaluation which are skilled and active to do observation and
communication, information and argumentation (Fisher, 2009).
In one hand, Norris and Ennis (1989) proposed critical thinking as a kind of
higher-order thinking is considered as a sense of reasonable, reflective thinking
focused on what believe what to do (Brookhart, 2010). And the other hand,
Ennis (1986), Henri (1991), and Garisson (1992) formulated their theories of
critical thinking as a problem-solving process involving five stages, namely;
focusing and observing on a question or problem, asking and answering
questions for clarification of problem, judging and understanding the situation
of the problem, analysing the problem, making and evaluation decisions or
solutions, and finally deciding on an action (Piaw, 2004).
The critical thinking can be defined as activities that develop and use skills.
There are three main points of critical thinking skills. Firstly, critical thinking
skills are often interrelated. It means that students can build their reasoning
and problem-solving skills and also groups skills working together to
accomplish the task of thinking critically about some problems, issues or claim.
Secondly, critical thinking skills involve the capability of building on each
other, in which students are not learned in isolation, but their exercise requires
each other. And the last, critical thinking skills are goal oriented because it is
not acquired for students’ sake, but students are expected to be able to become
a critical thinker in daily life (Reichenbach, 2001). Hence, critical thinking will
 lead students to create ideas and right decisions that will make their life better
in future.
Moreover, Watson and Glaser (1980) proposed that the critical thinking skill
does involve not only skills but also attitude and knowledge. The attitude
represents the ability to recognise and accept problems as well as supporting
evidence claimed to be true. For knowledge, the critical thinker will be provided
with the ability to do inferences, abstractions, and generalisations that can be
used to weight or accuracy various of different pieces of evidence. The last,
skill will act as a link to employ and apply attitude and knowledge (Piaw, 2004).

3. The Characteristic of A Critical Thinker

Someone is called as critical thinkers if they have some characteristics. In
books of Introduction to Critical Thinking by Reichenbach, the critical thinkers
possess two main characteristics. The first characteristic is curiosity about the
world. They do not accept things at face value. It means that they never receive
something without looking for the additional information about it. They will
explore carefully the reason why semething looks like and why other people
can think things are particular way. These are reasons why critical thinkers
have better foundations in deciding what they believe and do as well as act
reasonably. Another characteristic is sceptics. Skeptics are a person who doubts
the truth or value of an idea or belief: For that reason, they will do analysing
and criticising things they obtained. They also ask 'why', look for basis factors
and evidence at the back of statements are made (Reichenbach, 2001).
Whereas, Paul and Elder propose that as the critical thinkers, they should
able to:
• Raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and
precisely;
• Gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to
interpret it effectively;
• Comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against
appropriate criteria and standards;
 • Thinks openmindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognising
and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical
consequences; and
• Communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to
complex problems (Paul & Elder, 2008).
Another opinion is expressed by Wade (1995). He views the critical thinkers
as a who is ‘fair-minded’. The term ‘fair-minded’ means the critical thinkers
can ask questions, define problems, examine evidence, analyse assumption and
biases, avoid emotional reasoning, do oversimplification, consider other
interpretation, and tolerate ambiguity (Piaw, 2004).
Compared with the explanation of The Foundation for The Critical
Thinking, to be the critical thinkers, the should have any intellectual standard
in thinking phase, they are clarity, accuracy, relevance, logicalness, breadth,
precision, significance, completeness, fairness, and depth. All intellectual
standards will be applied in purposes, questions, points of view, inferences,
concepts, implications, and assumptions (Paul & Elder, 2008).

4. The competencies of critical Thinking skill

According to Benjamin Bloom, the critical thinking can happen in six stages
structure of educational objectives, they are (Reichenbach, 2001):
a. Step 1: Knowledge
The first phase in acquiring facts or discovering information like
specific data, methods, patterns, or idea. Knowledge in this stage means
that to know a little bit about events or news. In the learning situation,
students can express this step by doing any tasks, such as:
 Doing recall the information obtained.
 Identifying and matching the data with the primary data given.
 Doing list the important things based on data given.
 Define and recording terms or finding the idea, topic or the supporting
evidence in data given.
 Sorting or rearranging the essential and useful information
b. Step 2: Comprehension
The term ‘comprehension’ means understanding the fact and
information obtained by creating new knowledge by own words by
relating and organising what students already learned and accomplished in
the previous stage. This stage will happen when students are asked to do
any tasks, such as:
 Discussing, expressing, or explaining what they have learned by using
their language,
 Restating, rearranging, summarising, or interpreting the material.
 Inferring or drawing a conclusion based on the information they read,
heard, or seen.
c. Step 3: Application
After phase 2 and phase 3 are done, the information comprehended by
students will be applied in an actual situation. Students will know
something more when they are able to do something about it. There are
some tasks involved in this step, they are:
 Applying what students have learned in an actual situation
 Interpreting, illustrating or giving an example of what they have
learned.
 Demonstrating the truth of information or developing an info showing
what students have learned will work out.
d. Step 4: Analysis
Analysis refers to breaking information into parts of ideas to see how
each ideacan be ordered or be linked to the other views. As a result, each
idea will be able to function in whole parts. The tasks related to analysis
step are:
 Ordering the information to distinguish dominant from subordinate
ideas
 Distinguishing statements of evidence from hypotheses
 Doing categorise the data obtained.
 Comparing and contrasting among ideas
e. Step 5: Synthesis
Synthesis means putting the parts of ideas students analysed together
with another information or source to form the new and original design.
For instance, the tasks involve the synthesis steps are:
 Composing and combining ideas of information to several shorts
stories together.
 Inventing or imagining new idea
 Revising or transforming idea
 Showing how students can solve a problem in a different way
f. Step 6: Evaluation
Evaluation is the final stage of the critical thinking process. In this phase,
critical thinkers concern to observe the connection between evidence and
the conclusion as well as judge the strong or weak the conclusion they
conclude. They are considered to do any tasks, such as; assess,
recommend, critique, evaluate, value, judge, weigh, and grade every
conclusion they get. Finally, they will make the good judgement based on
the evidence of information.
In the other hand, from approaching FRISCO (Focus, Reason, Inference,
Situation, Clarity, and Overview), Ennis (1995) formulated six essential
elements of critical thinking, which are; Firstly, Focus – introducing some
situation. Secondly, Reason – supporting the conclusion. Thirdly, Inference –
assessing the acceptable and sufficient solution to make a decision. Next,
Situation – having the supporting situation such as both physical and social
environment. It is not only thinking activity but also the meaning of what to
hold and to assess by the thinker. Another step is Clarify – explaining the clear
and explicit message will avoid ambiguity. The final step is Overview –
verifying the final decision (Hapsari, 2016).
In contrast, Watson and Glaser defined five competencies of critical
thinking; they are; Inference - the ability to discriminate among degrees of truth
or falsity of inferences. An inference is a conclusion a person can draw from
specific observation or facts. Another competency is Recognition – the ability
to recognise assumptions. An assumption is something taken for granted. The
third competency is Deduction – the ability to determine whether certain
conclusions necessarily follow from information in given statements or
premises. Next, Interpretation – the ability to weigh the evidence and come to
generalisations or findings based on the given data. It is the ability to judge
whether or not the conclusion logically follows beyond a reasonable doubt
from the provided information. Finally, Evaluation – the ability to recognise
the difference between arguments are strong and relevant; and weak and
irrelevant (Piaw, 2004).
Whereas, Facione (1998) declared that in the first step, the critical thinkers
are asked to make the interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference.
Secondly, they apply their ideas and explain how to take their conclusion by
stating the results, justifying the procedures and presenting his arguments. At
the last, they will do the self-examination and self-correction. The critical
thinking process is described in six cores, which are (Piaw, 2004);
 Interpretation
The term ‘interpretation’ means to comprehend and express the meaning
of the variety of experiences, situations, data, judgements, beliefs, rules,
procedures or criteria.
 Analysis
Analysis refers to the ability in identifying the intended and actual
inferential relationship among statements, questions, concepts,
descriptions, or other forms of representation intended to express belief,
judgement, experiences, reasons, information, or opinions.
 Evaluation
Assessing credibility of statements or other representation of person’s
perception, experience, situation, judgement, beliefe, or opinion, as well
as evaluate the strength of the actual or inferential relationships among
statements, descriptions, questions or another form of representation is
called an evaluation phase.
 Inference
 The critical thinkers identify and secure elements to conclude reasonable
conclusions; state conjecture and hypothesis; and deduce the consequences
flowing from data, statements, evidence, judgments, belief, opinions,
concepts, descriptions, questions, or another form of representation.
 Explanation
The critical thinkers can present the results of their reasoning to justify that
argument regarding of evidential, conceptual, methodological, and
contextual considerations.
 Self-regulation
Self-regulation is divided into two sub-skills, which are self-examination
and self-correction. These skills are used to monitor cognitive activities,
elements used in learning activities, and results deduced.

5. Aspect of Critical Thinking

1. Disposition
Critical thinkers have some features, such as (Ya-Ting C et al.,;
 Analyticity. It requires the application of reason and evidence.
 Open-mindedness. It means the ability or willingness to tolerate the
existence of different opinions.
 Truthseeker. It means to have a courageous desire for getting the best
knowledge.
 Systematicity. It refers to focus on value arrangement of problem.
 Self-confidence. It shows that critical thinkers can trust their
reasoning skill.
 Inquisitiveness. It is defined as curiosity and impatient in learning and
developing knowledge.
 Maturity. It possesses the wisdom in deciding a proper judgment.
2. Criteria
The reasoning in a making decision must be based on facts, purpose,
evidence, a point of view, information, concept, idea which are credible,
 reliable, relevant, free from logical fallacies, and logically consistent (Piaw,
2004).
3. Argument
An argument is a statement consisting of premises and conclusion. The
critical thinkers will identify, evaluate, and construct an argument to offer
reasons for thinking belief is true (Rainbolt & Dwyer, 2012).
4. Reasoning
The reasoning is an ability to deduce conclusion from the statement
intended to support the conclusion (Piaw, 2004).
5. Point of view
To enhance comprehension, the critical thinker will search and discover
the different points of view about a phenomenon (Piaw, 2004).
6. Procedure of Applying Criteria
The critical thinking needs some phase like proposing questions, seeking
information, defining concepts, identifying assumption, implication and
consequences, as well as interpretation and inferencing conclusion and
solution (Piaw, 2004).

6. Conclusion

The critical thinking skill is a form of higher order thinking skill involving
students in learning to recognise or develop an argument, use evidence in
supporting of that argument, drawing reasoned conclusions, and using the
information to solve problems. As the critical thinkers, they should have any
skills in thinking such as interpreting, analysing, evaluating, explaining,
sequencing, reasoning, comparing, questioning, inferring, hypothesising,
appraising, testing and generalising.

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