ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a toolkit by deconstructing critical thinking so that the candidate can decide what elements are most appropriate to emphasise in their research. While not all elements of critical thinking are applicable to all disciplines, we discover that there is a considerable overlap, thus critical thinking can be considered to be a generic skill. We begin with a definition of key terms. The underlying assumption is that students can become what Perkins (1999) would call ‘pragmatic constructivists’ by applying critical thinking to their research project.
The work of Donald (2002) is used as the main guide to analysing techniques of critical thinking at a high level. The chapter then moves on to look at how academics believe knowledge emerges or appears. Problem solving and project management have many elements in common and for this purpose are treated within the same approach, but this highlights one of the challenges to the boundaries in the framework because project management has also already been referred to as part of the functional approach in Chapter 3. Finally there are some questions for reflection.
