richard paul critical thinking model

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Critical Thinking: Concepts and Tools by Richard Paul & Linda Elder The Miniature Guide to The Foundation for Critical Thinking www.criticalthinking.org 707-878-9100 [email protected]

For more information, see: The Miniature Guide to The Foundation for Critical Thinking www.criticalthinking.org 707-878-9100 [email protected] Visual Map of Paul-Elder Critical Thinking Model: https://louisville.edu/ideastoaction/about/criticalthinking/framework

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According to Laws of The Republic Indonesia Number 12 in 2012 about Higher Education article 5, one of the main purposes of higher education is to promote the potentially development of students in order to be man of faith and fear of God Almighty and noble, healthy, knowledgeable, skilled, creative, independent, skilled, competent, and cultured for the sake of the nation. Therefore, the students of higher level should be promoted to have critical, reflective and analytical abilities. Although students at university levels should be able to develop this kind of thought, thinking critically is not simply acquired; it ought to be promoted and practiced constantly trough effective aids. A useful mean to foster critical thinking in this context is reading, and more specifically comprehension reading game " Brain Teasers ". Reading without comprehension is simply word calling. Effective comprehends not only make sense of the text, but are also able to use the information it contains. They are able to think thoughtfully or deeply and to make personal connections as they analyze and question what they are reading, hearing, and seeing. Studies showed that developing students' abilities to take critical literacy boldness when reading texts is an important aspect of literacy instruction. Interpreting texts through a critical literacy lens can help students become aware of the messages that texts communicate; who should receive privileges; and who has been or continues to be oppressed. As students learn how to engage in critical

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As a philosophy professor, one of my central goals is to teach students to think critically. However, one difficulty with determining whether critical thinking can be taught, or even measured, is that there is widespread disagreement over what critical thinking actually is. Here, I reflect on several conceptions of critical thinking, subjecting them to critical scrutiny. I also distinguish critical thinking from other forms of mental processes with which it is often conflated. Next, I present my own conception of critical thinking, wherein it fundamentally consists in acquiring, developing, and exercising the ability to grasp inferential connections holding between statements. Finally, given this account of critical thinking, and given recent studies in cognitive science, I suggest the most effective means for teaching students to think critically.

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Critical thinking is an intellectually disciplined process of actively and skilfully conceptualising, applying, analysing and evaluating information gathered from or generated by observation, experience, reflection, reasoning or communication, as a guide to belief and action. To accomplish these critical thinking actions good language ability is crucial. Vygotsky revise great importance to the link between the development of language and critical thinking. This is a correlational research in which 30 MA Students of Azad University of Shiraz branch were selected as participants. California Critical thinking skills questionnaire was used to collect the data in this research. Results indicated that there is significant relationship between mother tongue and critical thinking level, but there is no significant relationship between age, gender and critical thinking level.

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This study was intended to investigate the effectiveness of teaching critical thinking on students' writing performance and their critical thinking dispositions. To this end, 140 students were selected. 73 students were assigned to the experimental group and 67 were assigned to the control group. The experimental group received instruction in critical thinking strategies whereas the control group did not. The instruments used in this study were the researcher-developed essay test, the Ennis-Weir critical thinking essay test, and the California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory (CCTDI). A 2-group pretest/posttest quasi-experimental design was utilized to determine the outcome measures. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and independent-samples t-test. Statistically significant differences were observed in the experimental and the control groups in the total scores of the three instruments. The results indicated an improvement in students' writing performance and their dispositions toward using critical thinking strategies. Nonetheless, some dispositional aspects such as truth-seeking, cognitive maturity, and open-mindedness did not differ significantly after the intervention.

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Dr. Punam Bansal

ABSTRACT In today’s complex world, where human beings need to solve problems, make decisions, or decide in a reasonable and reflective way what to believe or what to do, critical thinking is found to be useful. Critical thinking is that mode of thinking - about any subject, content, or problem - in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them. It entails effective communication and problem solving abilities that can help citizens make sense of their world and participate in a democratic dialogue. To prepare such citizens with higher order thinking skills should be foremost priority of any education system. Therefore ,it is the responsibility of teachers to foster critical thinking skills of their students and switch over to constructivist methods so that students can construct their knowledge and apply it to solve real life problems. This paper is a modest attempt by author to suggest some useful practices in classroom to develop critical thinking skills.

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How to think effectively: Six stages of critical thinking

Credit: Elder / Paul

• Researchers propose six levels of critical thinkers: Unreflective thinkers, Challenged thinkers, Beginning thinkers, Practicing thinkers, Advanced thinkers, and Master thinkers.
• The framework comes from educational psychologists Linda Elder and Richard Paul.
• Teaching critical thinking skills is a crucial challenge in our times.

The coronavirus has not only decimated our populations, its spread has also attacked the very nature of truth and stoked inherent tensions between many different groups of people, both at local and international levels. Spawning widespread conspiracy theories and obfuscation by governments, the virus has also been a vivid demonstration of the need for teaching critical thinking skills necessary to survive in the 21st century. The stage theory of critical thinking development, devised by psychologists Linda Elder and Richard Paul , can help us gauge the sophistication of our current mental approaches and provides a roadmap to the thinking of others.

The researchers identified six predictable levels of critical thinkers, from ones lower in depth and effort to the advanced mind-masters, who are always steps ahead.

As the scientists write , moving up on this pyramid of thinking “is dependent upon a necessary level of commitment on the part of an individual to develop as a critical thinker.” Using your mind more effectively is not automatic and “is unlikely to take place “subconsciously.” In other words – you have to put in the work and keep doing it, or you’ll lose the faculty.

Here’s how the stages of intellectual development break down:

Unreflective thinker

These are people who don’t reflect about thinking and the effect it has on their lives. As such, they form opinions and make decisions based on prejudices and misconceptions while their thinking doesn’t improve.

Unreflective thinkers lack crucial skills that would allow them to parse their thought processes. They also do not apply standards like accuracy, relevance, precision, and logic in a consistent fashion.

How many such people are out there? You probably can guess based on social media comments. As Elder and Paul write , “it is perfectly possible for students to graduate from high school, or even college, and still be largely unreflective thinkers.”

Challenged thinker

This next level up thinker has awareness of the importance of thinking on their existence and knows that deficiencies in thinking can bring about major issues. As the psychologists explain, to solve a problem, you must first admit you have one.

People at this intellectual stage begin to understand that “high quality thinking requires deliberate reflective thinking about thinking”, and can acknowledge that their own mental processes might have many flaws. They might not be able to identify all the flaws, however.

A challenged thinker may have a sense that solid thinking involves navigating assumptions, inferences, and points of view, but only on an initial level. They may also be able to spot some instances of their own self-deception. The true difficulty for thinkers of this category is in not “believing that their thinking is better than it actually is, making it more difficult to recognize the problems inherent in poor thinking,” explain the researchers.

Thinkers at this level can go beyond the nascent intellectual humility and actively look to take control of their thinking across areas of their lives. They know that their own thinking can have blind spots and other problems and take steps to address those, but in a limited capacity.

Beginning thinker

Beginning thinkers place more value in reason, becoming self-aware in their thoughts. They may also be able to start looking at the concepts and biases underlying their ideas. Additionally, such thinkers develop higher internal standards of clarity, accuracy and logic, realizing that their ego plays a key role in their decisions.

Another big aspect that differentiates this stronger thinker – some ability to take criticism of their mental approach, even though they still have work to do and might lack clear enough solutions to the issues they spot.

Practicing thinker

This more experienced kind of thinker not only appreciates their own deficiencies, but has skills to deal with them. A thinker of this level will practice better thinking habits and will analyze their mental processes with regularity.

While they might be able to express their mind’s strengths and weaknesses, as a negative, practicing thinkers might still not have a systematic way of gaining insight into their thoughts and can fall prey to egocentric and self-deceptive reasoning.

How do you get to this stage? An important trait to gain, say the psychologists, is “intellectual perseverance.” This quality can provide “the impetus for developing a realistic plan for systematic practice (with a view to taking greater command of one’s thinking).”

“We must teach in such a way that students come to understand the power in knowing that whenever humans reason, they have no choice but to use certain predictable structures of thought: that thinking is inevitably driven by the questions, that we seek answers to questions for some purpose, that to answer questions, we need information, that to use information we must interpret it (i.e., by making inferences), and that our inferences, in turn, are based on assumptions, and have implications, all of which involves ideas or concepts within some point of view,” explain Elder and Paul.

One doesn’t typically get to this stage until college and beyond, estimate the scientists. This higher-level thinker would have strong habits that would allow them to analyze their thinking with insight about different areas of life. They would be fair-minded and able to spot the prejudicial aspects in the points of view of others and their own understanding.

While they’d have a good handle on the role of their ego in the idea flow, such thinkers might still not be able to grasp all the influences that affect their mentality.

Advanced thinker

The advanced thinker is at ease with self-critique and does so systematically, looking to improve. Among key traits required for this level are “intellectual insight” to develop new thought habits, “ intellectual integrity” to “recognize areas of inconsistency and contradiction in one’s life,” intellectual empathy ” to put oneself in the place of others in order to genuinely understand them, and the “ intellectual courage” to confront ideas and beliefs they don’t necessarily believe in and have negative emotions towards.

Master thinker

This is the super-thinker, the one who is totally in control of how they process information and make decisions. Such people constantly seek to improve their thought skills, and through experience “regularly raise their thinking to the level of conscious realization.”

A master thinker achieves great insights into deep mental levels, strongly committed to being fair and gaining control over their own egocentrism.

Such a high-level thinker also exhibits superior practical knowledge and insight, always re-examining their assumptions for weaknesses, logic, and biases.

And, of course, a master thinker wouldn’t get upset with being intellectually confronted and spends a considerable amount of time analyzing their own responses.

“Why is this so important? Precisely because the human mind, left to its own, pursues that which is immediately easy, that which is comfortable, and that which serves its selfish interests. At the same time, it naturally resists that which is difficult to understand, that which involves complexity, that which requires entering the thinking and predicaments of others,” write the researchers.

So how do you become a master thinker? The psychologists think most students will never get there. But a lifetime of practicing the best intellectual traits can get you to that point when “people of good sense seek out master thinkers, for they recognize and value the ability of master thinkers to think through complex issues with judgment and insight.”

The significance of critical thinking in our daily lives, especially in these confusing times, so rife with quick and often-misleading information, cannot be overstated. The decisions we make today can truly be life and death.

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Ideas to Action (i2a)

• Paul-Elder Critical Thinking Framework

Critical thinking is that mode of thinking – about any subject, content, or problem — in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them. (Paul and Elder, 2001). The Paul-Elder framework has three components:

• The elements of thought (reasoning)
• The  intellectual standards that should be applied to the elements of reasoning
• The intellectual traits associated with a cultivated critical thinker that result from the consistent and disciplined application of the intellectual standards to the elements of thought

According to Paul and Elder (1997), there are two essential dimensions of thinking that students need to master in order to learn how to upgrade their thinking. They need to be able to identify the "parts" of their thinking, and they need to be able to assess their use of these parts of thinking.

Elements of Thought (reasoning)

The "parts" or elements of thinking are as follows:

• All reasoning has a purpose
• All reasoning is an attempt to figure something out, to settle some question, to solve some problem
• All reasoning is based on assumptions
• All reasoning is done from some point of view
• All reasoning is based on data, information and evidence
• All reasoning is expressed through, and shaped by, concepts and ideas
• All reasoning contains inferences or interpretations by which we draw conclusions and give meaning to data
• All reasoning leads somewhere or has implications and consequences

Universal Intellectual Standards

The intellectual standards that are to these elements are used to determine the quality of reasoning. Good critical thinking requires having a command of these standards. According to Paul and Elder (1997 ,2006), the ultimate goal is for the standards of reasoning to become infused in all thinking so as to become the guide to better and better reasoning. The intellectual standards include:

Intellectual Traits

Consistent application of the standards of thinking to the elements of thinking result in the development of intellectual traits of:

• Intellectual Humility
• Intellectual Courage
• Intellectual Empathy
• Intellectual Autonomy
• Intellectual Integrity
• Intellectual Perseverance
• Confidence in Reason
• Fair-mindedness

Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines

Volume 31, issue 1, spring 2016.

Richard Paul and the Philosophical Foundations of Critical Thinking

The late Richard Paul was arguably the most well-known and influential person in the history of the critical thinking movement. This reflection on and tribute to his work focuses on Paul’s genius in applying his knowledge of important works in the history of philosophy to the development of a robust conception of critical thinking, one that has wide appeal, not only to philosophers, but to faculties across academe. I also discuss the debt so many of us who teach critical thinking owe to his amazing scholarly and organizational skills, e.g., the 36 years of the Conference on Critical Thinking and Educational Reform, his in-service work for hundreds of faculties, his distribution of over one million “Thinkers Guides,” and his successful efforts to make critical thinking the core concept in education.

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Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Learning and Your Life Fourth Edition

Written by international authorities on critical thinking, this book details an integrated, universal concept of critical thinking that is both substantive and applicable to any and every situation in which human thinking is necessary. It provides students with the basic intellectual tools needed for life-long learning, helping them understand the mind and how its three functions—thinking, feeling, motivating—influence one another.

Critical Thinking fosters the development of fair-minded critical thinking and explores essential intellectual standards of clarity, precision, accuracy, logicalness, significance, depth, breadth, and fairness; the importance of skilled and deep questioning; and how to take thinking apart in order to find problems in thinking and then improve thinking.

The fourth edition features

• Think for Yourself activities
• Glossary of critical thinking terms
• New chapter on argumentation
• New chapters on critical thinking in the professions (including critique of disciplines)
• Discussion of the Internet's effects on our lives
• Updated discussions of media bias and political propaganda, as well as egocentric and sociocentric thought as barriers to critical thinking

The Foundation for Critical Thinking continually offers new supplementary resources on its website (www.CriticalThinking.org) and in its online critical thinking community (www.CriticalThinkingCommunity.org).

• ISBN-10 1538138743
• ISBN-13 978-1538138748
• Edition Fourth
• Publisher The Foundation for Critical Thinking
• Publication date February 1, 2022
• Language English
• Dimensions 8.09 x 0.98 x 10.06 inches
• Print length 642 pages
• See all details

Editorial Reviews

This book is well-written, lucid and contains abundant examples and applications that not only enliven the subject matter but present relevant contexts for building understanding and advanced critical thinking.

A comprehensive and robust textbook. Richard Paul and Linda Elder offer a model of critical thinking that can be applied not only to academic disciplines but also to life in general.

About the Author

Dr. Richard Paul was a leading proponent of critical thinking and through his work and legacy remains an international authority in the field. He founded the Center for Critical Thinking at Sonoma State University in 1980, followed by the Foundation for Critical Thinking. He developed concepts, principles, and theory essentials to a robust and fairminded conception of critical thinking and authored more than 200 articles, seven books, and 24 thinker’s guides on the topic. He presented workshops to hundreds of thousands of educators over his 35-year career as a leader in the critical thinking movement.

Dr. Linda Elder is an educational psychologist and leading authority on critical thinking who has taught both psychology and critical thinking at the college level. She has been president of the Foundation for Critical Thinking and the executive director of the Center for Critical Thinking for more than 25 years. She has a special interest in the relation of thought and emotion, as well as the cognitive and affective. She has developed an original theory of the stages of critical thinking development. Elder is the author of Liberating the Mind , and has coauthored four books on critical thinking, as well as all 23 titles found in the Thinker's Guide Library.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ The Foundation for Critical Thinking; Fourth edition (February 1, 2022)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 642 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1538138743
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1538138748
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.6 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.09 x 0.98 x 10.06 inches
• #46 in Philosophy of Logic & Language
• #793 in Education Theory (Books)
• #4,615 in Science & Math (Books)

About the author

Richard paul.

As Director of Research and Professional Development at the Center for Critical Thinking and Chair of the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking, Dr. Paul is an internationally recognized authority on critical thinking, with eight books and over 200 articles on the subject. He has written books for every grade level and has done extensive experimentation with teaching tactics and strategies, and devising, among other things, novel ways to engage students in rigorous self-assessment.

Dr. Paul has received four degrees and has given lectures on critical thinking at many universities in both the United States and abroad, including Harvard, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois, and the universities of Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, British Columbia, Toronto, and Amsterdam. He taught beginning and advanced courses in critical thinking at the university level for over 20 years. He has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including Distinguished Philosopher (by the Council for Philosophical Studies, 1987), O.C. Tanner Lecturer in Humanities (by Utah State University, 1986), Lansdown Visiting Scholar (by the University of Victoria, 1987), and the Alfred Korsybski Memorial Lecturer (by the Institute for General Semantics, 1987).

His views on critical thinking have been canvassed in the New York Times, Education Week, The Chronicle of Higher Education, American Teacher, Reader’s Digest, Educational Leadership, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report. For more information about Dr. Paul and the work of the Center and Foundation for Critical Thinking, go to www.criticalthinking.org

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ScholarWorks at UMass Boston

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Home > CEHD > CCT > CCT_CAPSTONE > 243

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

Remapping critical thinking theory: a critique of richard paul's model of critical thinking.

Lyonel Prime , University of Massachusetts Boston

Date of Completion

Document type.

Open Access Capstone

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

First Advisor

Delores B. Gallo

Second Advisor

Arthur Millman

This project is a critical examination of Richard Paul's theoretical conceptualization of critical thinking. In his relentless criticism of the didactic approach characterizing current academic instruction, Paul develops a model of critical thinking that he refers to as critical thinking in the strong sense. The model posits dialogue as the methodological strategy that helps overcome egocentric and socio-centric thinking and thereby facilitates the achievement of ethically rational development. By egocentric and socio-centric thinking, Paul means the thinking that is bound, respectively by one point of view and social context. The model in question is intended not only to displace didactic instruction but also to transcend the overemphasis on logic that characterizes current critical thinking theorizing. While Paul's work points to a promising theoretical horizon, it betrays the very educational ideal that it sets out to pursue. Not only is it the exemplification of the didactic approach that it is intended to displace, but it is also carried out in a conceptual framework that reinforces the modernist view of effective thinking as the rigorous application of rational standards in the determination of the truthfulness of issues. By giving preeminence to logic and rational standards in the thinking process, Paul's view legitimizes a style of inquiry that is conducive to definitive closure. It is fundamentally reductionist: it tends to privilege exclusion over integration, object over relationship. This paper presents an alternative view of critical thinking the theoretical underpinning of which includes a conception of knowledge as immanent. Its primary concern is the achievement of understanding or the production of meaning through persistent explorations of relational structures as opposed to discrete objects. It therefore dismisses any quest for a secure foundation of knowing as illusory. This work is presenting as its starting point the conventional model of educational practice. It provides a brief description of the didactic approach against which Paul levels his criticism. Then, it moves to offer Paul's actual criticism, his view of critical thinking and a critique of his model. Finally, the paper presents a reconfiguration of the theoretical landscape of critical thinking. It formulates and justifies a non-objectivist conception of critical thinking.

Recommended Citation

Prime, Lyonel, "Remapping Critical Thinking Theory: A Critique of Richard Paul's Model of Critical Thinking" (1998). Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection . 243. https://scholarworks.umb.edu/cct_capstone/243

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How to Apply Paul-Elder Critical Thinking Framework

The critical  thinking  framework provides an efficient method for designers, design students, and researchers to evaluate arguments and ideas through rational reasoning. As a result, we eliminate biases, distractions, and similar factors that negatively affect our decisions and judgments. We can use critical thinking to escape our current mindsets to reach innovative outcomes.

The  critical thinking framework  is based on three main stages; observe the problem to build rational knowledge, ask questions to analyze and evaluate data, and find answers to the questions that can be formulated into a solution. These stages are translated into six steps ( 6 Steps for Effective Critical Thinking ):

• Knowledge – Define the main topic that needs to be covered
• Comprehension – Understand the issue through researching the topic
• Application – Analyze the data and link between the collected data
• Analysis – Solve the problem, or the issue investigated
• Synthesis – Turn the solution into an implementable action plan
• Evaluate – test and evaluate the solution

Based on the above, the essential part of the critical thinking framework represents building clear, coherent reasoning for the problem, which will help ensure that the topic is addressed in the critical thinking stages.

Related articles:

• Guide for Critical Thinking for Designers
• 6 Steps for Effective Critical Thinking
• The Six Hats of Critical Thinking and How to Use Them

The Paul-Elder Critical Thinking Framework

In 2001, Paul and Elder introduced the critical thinking framework that helps students to master their thinking dimensions through identifying the thinking parts and evaluating the usage of these parts. The framework aims to improve our reasoning by identifying its different elements through three main elements; elements of reasoning, intellectual standards, and intellectual traits.

Elements of Reasoning

Whenever we have a topic or argument to discuss, we tend to use a number of thinking models to understand the topic at hand (i.e.  Using Inductive Reasoning in User Experience Research ). These parts are known as the elements of thought or reasoning. Our minds may use these parts over the course to think about the idea:

Purpose  – This part of our thinking includes defining the topic’s goal or objective. For example, the goal may involve solving a problem or achieving a target. Attempt  – This part includes the attempts that previously addressed the topic or attempts to solve a problem. Assumption  – Before solving a problem, we don’t have much information about the topic. Therefore, we build assumptions to act as the base of our research about the issue. We usually start with inductive inferences. Then, we use the research data to validate these assumptions. For example, we assume that all apples are red and start to research the different types of trees to know that some apples are green and some are red. The point of View  includes the personal perspective we take while thinking about the topic. For instance, we can think about the product from the consumer perspective rather than the business perspective. Data, Information, and Evidence  – Here, we cover the data and information related to the topic. Also, here we have all the supportive evidence. Concepts and Ideas  – We have all the principles, models, and theories related to the topic. For example, this part may include all the views associated with applying a specific solution. Inferences and Interpretations  – The last part includes the concluded solutions based on the previous factors. The conclusion may consist of the suggested solution to a specific problem. Implications and Consequences  – All the reasons must lead to consequences resulting from implementing the results of the reasoning process.

Intellectual Standards

The above reasoning parts require a good quality benchmark to achieve its goals and ensure the accuracy of results. The intellectual standards are nine factors that can evaluate the equality of the reason parts mentioned above. These standards include clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic, significance, and fairness. Based on these standards, we can ask ourselves questions to evaluate the parts above. The below table provides examples of the questions that we can ask to assess the equality of our ideas.

The below two videos include Dr. Richard Paul’s lectures about the standards of thought and critical thinking.

Intellectual Traits

As a result of the application for the above reasoning parts and validating them using intellectual standards, The below characteristics are expected to evolve, known as the intellectual traits:

Intellectual Humility

This trait develops one’s ability to perceive the known limitation and the circumstances that may cause biases and self-deceptively. It depends on recognizing that one claims what one’s knows.

Intellectual Courage

Courage represents developing a consciousness to address ideas fairly regardless of its point of View or our negative emotions about it. Also, it helps us develop our ability to evaluate ideas regardless of our presumptions and perceptions about them.

Intellectual Empathy

Empathy is related to developing the ability to put ourselves in others’ shoes to understand them. Also, it forms how we can see the parts of reasoning of the others, such as the viewpoints, assumptions, and ideas.

Intellectual Integrity

This part is related to developing the ability to integrate with other intellectual reasoning and avoid the confusion of our reasoning. Unlike empathy, integrity focuses on the ability to others’ reasoning for the topic and integrate with it.

Intellectual Perseverance

Perseverance develops the need to have a proper insight about the situation regardless of the barriers faced against it, such as difficulties, frustration, and obstacles. This helps us to build rational reasoning despite what is standing against it.

Confidence in Reason

By applying the reasoning parts and encouraging people to develop their reasons, they build confidence in their reason and rational thinking.

Fair-mindedness

This trait develops the ability to start with a fair look at all the reasoning and traits of all the viewpoints, putting aside one’s feelings, raises, and interests.

The critical thinking framework can help us address topics and problems more rationally, contributing to building a clear understanding of topics. This can be achieved through having clear reasoning about the addressed topics. The Paul-Eder Critical Thinking Framework was introduced in 2001 to improve the critical thinking process by understanding the parts of the reasons and providing a method to evaluate it. You can learn more about the framework through the  Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking  published by the Foundation of Critical Thinking.

Understanding the thinking elements and how to evaluate our reasoning related to each part, we can improve our thoughts through time. Additionally, seven main advantages (intellectual traits) can be achieved.

Paul-Elder’s critical thinking framework identifies the thinking parts through eight elements of reasoning (purpose, attempt, assumption, point of view, data, concepts and ideas, and inference and interpretation). Nine benchmarks are used to evaluate the application of the above elements (clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic, significance and fairness).

What are the critical thinking framework  elements?

Define the main topic that needs to be covered

 Understand the issue through researching the topic

Analyze the data and link between the collected data

Solve the problem, or the issue investigated

Turn the solution into an implementable action plan

Test and evaluate the solution

The application of the Paul-Elder Critical Thinking Framework is based on identifying eight elements of reasoning: Purpose, Attempt, Assumption, Point of View, Data and Evidence, Concepts and Ideas, Inferences and Interpretations and Implications and Consequences.  

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As an academic and author, I've had the privilege of shaping the design landscape. I teach design at the University of Leeds and am the Programme Leader for the MA Design, focusing on design thinking, design for health, and behavioural design. I've developed and taught several innovative programmes at Wrexham Glyndwr University, Northumbria University, and The American University in Cairo. I'm also a published book author and the proud founder of Designorate.com, a platform that has been instrumental in fostering design innovation. My expertise in design has been recognised by prestigious organizations. I'm a fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA), the Design Research Society (FDRS), and an Adobe Education Leader. Over the course of 20 years, I've had the privilege of working with esteemed clients such as the UN, World Bank, Adobe, and Schneider, contributing to their design strategies. For more than 12 years, I collaborated closely with the Adobe team, playing a key role in the development of many Adobe applications.

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3 thoughts on “ how to apply paul-elder critical thinking framework ”.

it was really helpfull

Thank you for this helpful distillation, as well as including the videos.

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• Foundation for Critical Thinking
• Spring 2010 Workshop for Administrators
• View the 30th conference keynote address by Richard Paul

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Richard Paul Memorial Page

Richard William Paul

September 1, 2015

Tomales, CA. The Foundation for Critical Thinking is saddened to announce the death of our Founder, Dr. Richard William Paul, who died quietly in his sleep on August 30, 2015. Paul suffered from Parkinson’s Disease.

Paul wrote eight books and more than 200 articles on critical thinking, including his early seminal work published in 1992, entitled, Critical Thinking: What Every Student [ Every Person, in later editions] Needs to Survive in a Rapidly Changing World. Throughout his life, Paul wrote books for every grade level and developed extensive teaching tactics and strategies that advance critical thinking in instruction.

In his critique of traditional philosophical approaches to reasoning, Paul illuminated the conflicting nature of these approaches, as well as the limitations and often glaring inconsistencies within and among them. He asserted the need for replacing the fragmented, inconsistent, and conflicting philosophical approaches to reasoning with an integrated, systematic, and – if possible – universal approach to critical thinking.

Paul argued that the primary task of the logician is to develop tools for the analysis and assessment of reasoning in every discipline and domain of human thought – tools to be used in reasoning through life’s many complex problems and issues. He emphasized the importance of the “logic of language” to human reasoning. He set forth the idea that every subject and discipline has a fundamental logic that could, and should, be explicitly formulated - and that an adequate theory of reasoning would provide the foundation for that logic.

1.     It is human nature to think (i.e. that thinking pervades every aspect of human life and every dimension of the human mind).

2.     Though it is human nature to think, it is not natural for humans to think well (human nature is heavily influenced by prejudice, illusion, mythology, ignorance, and self-deception).

3.     Therefore, we need to be able to intervene in thinking, to analyze it, assess it, and, where necessary, improve it.

Paul believed that critical thinking, properly conceptualized, entails understanding the ethical dimension of human life. Paul, from his earliest days as a theoretician, placed the realization of fairminded critical societies at the center of his work and his conception of critical thinking. In the 1980’s, he articulated the crucial distinction between strong-sense critical thinking and weak-sense critical thinking. While critical thinking in the weak sense is used in ways that are manipulative, selfish, and in other ways unethical, critical thinking in the strong sense adheres to the standard of fairness. In Paul’s view, then, critical thinking is not thinking that is merely skilled. If our thinking is not attuned to fairness, to taking account of other points of view and the consequences our thinking and resulting actions have for others, then it is flawed. It is not truly critical thinking because it fails to consider the rights and needs of relevant others.

To highlight different dimensions and applications of critical thinking, Paul developed a number of (now often-cited) definitions of critical thinking, including this basic definition, written with Linda Elder: " critical thinking is a mode of thinking about any subject, content, or problem in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them.”  

Taking charge of the structures of thought, for Paul, requires both the analysis and the assessment of thinking. Paul conceptualized reasoning as entailing eight distinctive elements of thought – purposes, questions, information, inferences, assumptions, point of view, implications, and concepts. In other words, he developed this fundamental idea: that whenever people reason, they reason for a purpose , in answering a question or given set of questions; they use information in making inferences and coming to conclusions; they take certain beliefs for granted (or in other words, make assumptions ) in conceptualizing situations and experiences; they reason from some point of view ; there are implications of their thinking.

In developing his understanding of the elements of reasoning, Paul was influenced by his background as a philosopher. But in formulating these elements, he was influenced by other domains of thought, as well as by educated usages of words. Again, he came to see that reasoning was far more complex than had been hitherto understood by traditionally philosophical approaches, which focused primarily on only a few parts of reasoning – namely premises (assumptions and information) and conclusions (inferences and/or implications). Paul’s theory entails the idea that all reasoning contains the eight elements, and therefore can be analyzed into eight specific parts in determining its full logic. All products of reasoning (conversations, articles, books, speeches, editorials, video programs, etc.) can be analyzed according to the eight elements. Further, to ignore any one part is to misunderstand the interrelationships between all parts.

Another hallmark of Paul’s philosophy is his emphasis  not only  on skills in critical thinking, but on the cultivation of intellectual, and hence ethical, character. For Paul, intellectual virtues are the centerpiece of the fairminded critical person and of a reasonable conception of critical thinking. Those who develop intellectual character, according to Paul, do so through deep commitment to the ideals and principles of critical thinking, passionately pursued over a lifetime.

In other words, Paul recognized the need to understand and cultivate the intellectual virtues of intellectual empathy, intellectual integrity, intellectual perseverance, intellectual courage, intellectual autonomy, confidence in reason, fairmindedness, and intellectual sense of justice.

The idea of intellectual virtues or traits, when Paul first began to conceptualize them, were not completely new. These traits can be seen, at least implicitly, in the works of a number of important thinkers throughout history, including Socrates, John Locke, William Graham Sumner, John Henry Newman, and Bertrand Russell. Paul’s contribution was in bringing the traits together in a system of ideas, clearly delineating them as intellectual in nature, defining and elaborating each one - including those most necessary in the mind of the cultivated thinker - and stressing the importance of these virtues in developing critical minds and critical societies.

Paul’s approach to critical thinking is inclusive in that he recognized the significant roles that many fields of study can play in our understanding of the human mind, thereby offering intellectual tools for intervening in human thought to improve the quality of human life. Paul was ever concerned to find the best, most foundational tools, the most easily-accessible concepts for understanding and intervening in thought.

"It is now generally recognized that the art of thinking critically is a major missing link in education today, and that effective communication and problem-solving skills, as well as mastery of content, require critical thinking…It is also generally understood that some major changes in instruction will have to take place to shift the overarching emphasis of student learning from rote memorization to effective critical thinking (as a primary tool of learning)." Paul argued that teaching should not entail transmitting information to students, but rather a “reworking of education where students construct knowledge through application of their own reasoning." He asserted that an educational setting that facilitates the exchange of open and free dialogue between opposing views is essential to any authentic exercise of critical thinking.

Richard Paul was born in Chicago on January 2, 1937. He earned a BA from Northern Illinois University and a master’s in English from UC Santa Barbara; he was a Research Student at St. John’s College, Cambridge University, and earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from UC Santa Barbara in 1968. He was a professor at Sonoma State University (SSU) for almost thirty years, later becoming Professor Emeritus of Philosophy there. Paul convened the first global conference on critical thinking in 1981 through the Center for Critical Thinking. The International Conference on Critical Thinking is now the longest-standing and most widely-attended conference on critical thinking in the world. Paul presented annually at the conference until prevented by illness in 2014.

Paul died at his home late in the evening on August 30, 2015. He is survived by Linda Elder, his wife of twenty years and constant collaborator, by his children, and by his legacy of advancing critical thinking in the service of fostering fairminded critical societies around the world.