As Patricia King points out,Ī student who appreciates why people approach controversial issues in her discipline from different perspectives is more likely to see and appreciate the reasons people approach social controversies from different perspectives. By encouraging our students to adopt a critical framework, we prepare them not only to engage in scholarly conversation and debate in our disciplines, but also to be engaged citizens in a democratic society. There is a link between this objective and developing deeper understandings of the self and the world. Active processing is critical to our students’ long-term retention of ideas and concepts and their ability to transfer those ideas and concepts to other contexts (4). IDEA research has found that it is related to Objectives #6 through #10 and Objective #12, which all address activities at the upper levels of cognitive taxonomies, activities requiring application and frequent synthesis and evaluation of ideas and events (3). Learning how to analyze and critically evaluate arguments thus helps them to develop a sound framework to test their own arguments and advance their own points of view.Objective 11 reflects an important component of the educational process – training students in the habits of thought in our disciplines. This work lays the foundation for students’ progressing to staking their own claims in an intellectually rigorous fashion. It is only through this critical evaluation that students can distinguish among competing claims for truth and determine which arguments and points of views they can trust and those of which they should be skeptical. The critical evaluation of ideas, arguments, and points of view is important for the development of students as autonomous thinkers (1, 2). Series Editor: Michael Theall, Youngstown State UniversityĪuthors: Patricia Armstrong, Vanderbilt University Sonja Moyer, US Army Command and General Staff College Katherine Stanton, Princeton University
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