ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at critical thinking from both a disciplinary and a more philosophical point of view. It analysis mostly ignore the psychosocial elements of supervision, in practice developing skills in critical thinking need not be a depersonalising experience. The chapter explores a range of approaches to critical thinking, both from the purely analytical perspective and aspects such as reflection and metacognition which also enable an increase in personal awareness. It turns to ways of examining our own research findings. The student facing interdisciplinary research or working with an interdisciplinary research team can usefully ask questions about each of these to enable them to critique different types of literature. A comprehensive overview of reflection as an aid to learning was carried out by Moon, which largely built upon and evaluated the work of Schon and Brookfield. King and Kitchener asked subjects to work with ill-structured problems and then discussed with them their experience of the process.
