Why Is Developing Critical Thinking Skills Important for Kids?

What does it mean to think critically? In psychology, there’s little agreement over the meaning of critical thinking, even though everyone agrees that critical thinking skills are vital for academic performance and career development. But, should teaching critical thinking for kids be a central learning objective?  

Keep reading to find out, as this is the question we’ll focus on today. First, we’ll take a brief overview of critical thinking as a cognitive phenomenon and choose a definition, so we both have a clearer understanding of the process when we discuss it further. Then, we’ll take a deep dive into the scientific evidence that’s been piling up. Finally, based on that evidence, we’ll talk about the benefits of teaching critical thinking skills to kids.

Let’s go.

A Brief Overview

Before we can argue that teaching critical thinking to kids is important, we need to make sure we’re on the same page concerning what critical thinking is, what are the underlying processes shaping critical thinking skills, and how critical thinking develops. 

What Is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is a cognitive process that we use to analyze information from our environment with reflective skepticism when deciding what to believe. In other words, critical thinking is a mental activity that allows us to examine the things presented to us in a unique way, so we can take the best course of action. 

To illustrate this, let’s think of a practical example. In the classroom, kids are required to learn by reading the educational material on a specific topic. Promoting critical thinking would be to examine the material with the goal of deciding whether it’s reliable, informative, biased vs. objective, and figuring out what are the author’s motives. The following questions reflect critical thinking: 

1. Who is the author and why did they write this piece of information? 

For example, they have professionally studied the topic for years.

2. What is the message that they want to share?

For example, the author believes XX, has convincing arguments, and wants to share them with the world.

3. How does this piece of information fit with everything else I know on this topic?

For example, this explains/contradicts the claims we’ve read last time.

4. Do I need additional information on this topic before I can reach a conclusion?

For example, the author didn’t explain how XX develops, and I need to read more about that before accepting/rejecting their arguments.

5. Should I trust this information? Why/Why not?

For example, the author didn’t include any references to support the claims (facts) on which they’ve based their arguments. Can I be sure they’re not lying?

6.  What did I learn from this piece of information?

For example, I’ve learned arguments supporting the topic, but I still need to see other points of view or see what critics say.

7. What are my next steps?

For example, read another text on this topic from another point of view. 

What Are Critical Thinking Skills? 

In the last paragraph, we’ve talked about critical thinking as if it’s one unit or process within our cognition. However, the truth is that complex processes, such as critical thinking, are better viewed as a collection or function of many different more basic mental processes, such as attention, logic, memory, etc. 

Unfortunately, when it comes to the mechanism underlying critical thinking, the disagreement among experts is just as strong as with its definition. Different authors identify different skills which they believe are vital for critical thinking. Of course, there’s overlap, and we’ll take a look at the skills and mechanisms which are accepted by most professionals. 

According to Kompf & Bond (2001), critical thinking involves rationality, reasoning, logic, previous knowledge, metacognition, intelligence, decision making, problem-solving, and a moral component (reflective thinking). 

Rationality and logic are two mechanisms frequently mentioned in other literature, too. This is because for most authors critical thinking is considered to be logically correct thinking. In other words, this would mean that kids who think critically can distinguish between logically true and logically false claims. In practice, critical thinking can be promoted by developing logical reasoning skills such as deduction, induction, and abduction.

However, some authors, such as Kerry S. Walters, argue that logical reasoning is necessary but not sufficient for rationality. Therefore, imagination, conceptual creativity, and intuition are also included in rationality, which might be important to keep in mind, when we discuss the benefits of teaching critical thinking for kids. 

To conclude, the following skills are considered to be part of critical thinking by most experts:

• Comprehension (decode meaning)
• Analysis (identify arguments)
• Inference (draw logically valid conclusions)
• Evaluation (assess the credibility/quality of claims)
• Explanation (present arguments for own conclusions)
• Self-regulation  (self-monitor and self-correct)

How to Develop Critical Thinking?

We’ve already touched upon this topic when we mentioned the practical skills involved in critical thinking. There are a lot of elements that children need to master first, such as logical thinking, mental visualization, deduction, and induction. Then, they need to learn how to use these elements to find patterns, make decisions, and think in a unique way. 

Safe to say, teaching critical thinking skills is a challenge that requires patience and a lot of practical experience. For these reasons, we don’t believe we can do justice to such a complex question in one paragraph, especially considering how important it’s for teachers and homeschooling parents to know where to start and how to make progress. However, we can discuss the development of critical thinking for kids in a separate article, which is exactly what we did! 

If you want to know how to develop critical thinking through practical examples and exercises, check out our article “11 Ways to Help Your Child Develop Critical Thinking Skills.”

And, in the meantime, let’s see why critical thinking is so important for kids!

Why Is Critical Thinking Important for Kids?

We can easily argue that critical thinking is one of the most important elements of literacy! Once children have developed critical thinking they’ll be able to make reasonable judgments, identify problems, come up with solutions, and filter reliable information necessary for independent learning. 

Another way to think about critical thinking is through the concept of digital literacy. Kids receive most of the information online where we can’t control who posts and what. This becomes a problem when we take into consideration that not everyone is qualified to speak or write on a specific topic, or they deliberately spread false information. Critical thinking for kids is a defense mechanism that shields them from becoming victims to such dangers. 

There are many other theoretical considerations and practical examples that illustrate the importance of critical thinking for kids. Let’s go over the most important ones.

What Can Scientific Findings Tell Us?

If we want to make a serious case about the importance of critical skills, we have to go beyond the theories and some teachers’ experiences and take a look at the science. What can we learn from psychological and pedagogical research findings? 

Murawski published a study in the Journal of Learning in Higher Education in 2014, where she discussed critical thinking in the classroom. According to her, educators who teach students critical thinking skills, give control to students to take over their learning process. In other words, children will then approach the course in a more effective manner, ask more challenging questions, and participate in the learning process more intensely.

However, as Carroll from the University of New Orleans cleverly remarks in his study, even though all teachers agree that basic knowledge and skills are not enough to define student achievement and critical thinking is more than necessary, assessments in almost all of the classrooms included in the study focused on basic knowledge and skills measured through multiple-choice questions. This brings up the issue of how much critical thinking is developed in schools and what are the effects of such variability. 

Ernst & Monroe’s study from 2007, published in the Environmental Education Research Journal, might shed some light on these issues. The authors investigated how environment-based curriculums (EBL) influence the development of critical thinking skills and a disposition toward critical thinking. The results show that, indeed, environment-based learning had a positive effect (improved) on students’ critical thinking skills. 

On the other hand, some evidence from a study in 2001, published in Instructional Science, shows that peer interaction is not effective for improving critical thinking skills. Unfortunately, this further illustrates the fact that critical thinking skills are incredibly complex and many teaching programs might get unsatisfactory results because they use non-effective methods. 

Another interesting take on critical thinking gives Loes et al. in their 2016 study which investigates the relationship between diverse experiences and critical thinking. The authors argue that students will be more likely to engage in effortful and complex modes of thought when they encounter new and unique situations. 

We also have evidence that argument maps improve critical thinking, which in turn make better learners out of students. More specifically, Rider and Thomason (2014) investigated the claims and gave support to the claims that students learn to better understand and critique arguments, improve in their reading and writing, and become clearer in their thinking through argument mapping (a method improving critical thinking). 

Finally, another study by Abduljaleel Alwali closely examined the benefits of critical thinking in high school and concluded that critical thinking positively impacts perception, individuality, general analytical skills, academic performance, metacognition, practical applications of theoretical knowledge, and decision-making. 

What do these studies tell us about the importance of critical thinking for kids in general? Keep reading, because everything that we’ve learned from these studies will be summarized and explained in greater detail in our next paragraph.

Benefits of Teaching Critical Thinking for Kids

By now, we’ve seen that there are many findings supporting some, if not all of the benefits associated with critical thinking. While we still need a lot more research to be done before we can completely demystify the neurological basis of critical thinking, it is more than clear that this is an incredibly important cognitive process that could literally change students’ lives. Here’s how!

Critical Thinking Promotes Creative Problem-Solving Skills

In some of the studies, we’ve seen that teachers do not believe that students’ achievements are mirrored only in the knowledge of facts or basic skills. All educators agree there’s more to education, including creativity and learning how to think. Well, teaching critical thinking is one way to go beyond factual knowledge, stimulate creativity, and allow students to look for innovative solutions to common problems. 

Critical Thinking Creates Independence

Another science-backed benefit of critical thinking is control and independence. In other words, students who are curious and are not afraid to question the information they get, usually take initiative and go on their own to find answers. This means that they think more deeply about the topic, want to know more details, and hear other opinions before making conclusions. All of this makes them more independent, as they’ll seek information beyond what’s given to them by the teacher, which is the first step toward independent learning. 

Critical Thinking Promotes Curiosity

The basis of continuous independent learning is curiosity. For a child to learn on their own, they need to be internally motivated, which is always associated with curiosity, one way or another. Moreover, the nature of critical thinking means to evaluate information by questioning aspects of it and relating it with previous knowledge. This is a very intense mental process that requires intentionality. If kids are not curious or internally motivated, chances are they won’t think too deeply about the issue. Teaching critical thinking is one way to make kids more curious about knowledge in general. 

Critical Thinking Stimulates Metacognition

Metacognition is a cognitive process that refers to one’s ability to think about thinking. It sounds a little weird, but it’s very simple. Because we have metacognition we’re aware of our own mental processes. We know whether we understand something and how we perform based on self-monitoring. It’s also the ability to see ourselves as thinkers or learners. How is it associated with critical thinking? Well, questioning and challenging information are only possible under the assumption that we are aware of how these pieces of information relate to our previous knowledge. It also entails questioning ourselves and finding new relations between the things we’ve learned before. This is why thinking critically means to use and practice metacognition. 

Critical Thinking Creates Resilience

Finally, one of the most important practical applications of critical thinking skills is improved literacy, which makes kids more resilient to manipulation, brainwashing, false information, and other dangers that lurk on the internet and in-person in the form of peer pressure, bullying, and more. Kids will have the ability to better analyse the situation and ultimately make better decisions. 

More generally, if we think of resilience as an ability to solve and overcome problems, then we can also argue that since critical thinking improves problem-solving skills, it acts as a protective factor for students in both educational and social contexts.

Before You Go

Critical thinking for kids is a truly essential topic that deserves more attention. As we’ve seen, critical thinking is associated with many other cognitive skills important for academic success, but also life in general. If educators dedicate more time for developing critical thinking skills, they can help students become more engaged in the learning process, independent, and efficient problem-solvers.

In case you’re wondering how you can achieve that in your classroom, let us remind you to check out our article on developing critical thinking skills among children. There, we’ve shared many different practical examples and exercises you can easily incorporate in the classroom. 

Furthermore, visit our main website and browse through our large collection of worksheet packs. Most of our resources are interactive and promote critical thinking skills in children through the exercises included in each topic.

Plus, make sure to follow our blog by subscribing to our newsletter. We regularly share insightful guides that break down complex topics, such as critical thinking for kids, in a clear and easy to read tone. This way, you can stay up to date with all the new trends and teaching practices in education, without losing yourself in the sea of information online.