Amongst the highest top of mind anxieties for parents and undergraduate students seeking the post, graduate admissions are whether the student will be able to get admission in a good post-graduation course or college. The competition for seats in good universities and institutions is intense In India. There are a hundred or more competent aspirants for each seat in reputed institutions. The admission criteria are of a very high standard, and then comes the intense elimination rounds where each student is pitted against the other to prove themselves as more deserving and competent than others.
This is an unfortunate situation for the students and parents as a highly competitive environment makes it a very high-stress period. It is even more stressful since the students are tested on skills that they have not been trained for or tested for in the past.
Several top institutions have designed their admission tests and processes to test the student's thinking skills. They want to know if the student knows how to think, not just what to think. Are they capable of evaluating situations, accurately identifying the underlying problems, looking for evidence, and formulating solutions that will solve the defined problems? Are they taking cognizance of the assumptions they make while analyzing the problem? Do they evaluate the implications of the recommended solution? Do they understand when value systems come into play and can identify what influences their values and conditioning could be in play during the evaluation and recommendation phases?
These institutions are looking for students with good critical thinking skills. And ironically right through under-graduation, students are only taught what to think, and not how to think. They are clueless about critical thinking and logical reasoning. Many of them do have some critical thinking abilities - not because of any formal training, but more due to learning these inductively in the process of discussions at college and home.
The bigger irony in India is that - while the higher education institutions in India do a test for critical thinking abilities during the admission phase, none of them insist on a course in critical thinking after the students join the institutions. A few of the institutions seem to have introduced a formal course in Critical thinking, but I am not sure what are the topics they cover in this course. At IIMA we had a course on 'Written Analysis and Communication', which was a rigorous exercise in Critical Thinking. We learned to become critical thinkers through the sheer application. If my recollection is right, we were introduced to a handful of logical fallacies to avoid. But we were not given a formal introduction to logical reasoning and cognitive biases as part of the course. I believe if we were introduced to those concepts, our approach to many problems would have been even more logical.
The GRE and GMAT exams have Critical thinking sections that need an understanding of logical reasoning. They ask for Argumentative essays, that can be done very well if the student has a foundation in logical reasoning. However, it looks like the aspirants are expected to learn logical reasoning and Critical Thinking by trial and error, as against a formal training in the subject.
Even at work, I have over the years found that people find it difficult to sustain a meaningful discussion around a topic for any decent length of time. Within a few minutes of the conversation, we take positions and try to defend these based on anecdotal evidence, hasty generalizations, rhetoric, and/or finally attacks on the person (Ad Hominem fallacy) when the discussion gets heated.
Formal training in Critical Thinking is the need of the hour. Students will understand their subjects better, perform better in competitive exams, group discussions, and personal interviews. At work, professionals will make better decisions and solve problems with greater ease, and get less stressed out when discussing rational contrary opinions.
It is convenient for our rulers and businesses if people are not able to think critically. Citizens will not question our rulers too hard, and businesses can continue to fuel our desires for stuff that we don't need and is often bad for us. When will there be a wake-up call and we start learning how to think, and not blindly absorb, assimilate and behave based on what is told to think and do?
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