Critical Thinking And Decision Making
To Be or Not To Be
(A Novice?s Examination of The Relationship Between Critical Thinking and Decision Making)
?To be, or not to be: that is the question:? (William Shakespeare, Hamlet)
Not unlike Hamlet, we face difficult decisions everyday. I spent eight years as a police officer and my decisions affected many people and permanently changed their lives and their futures. Each decision required the use of the critical thinking process to make the right decisions and to uncover the truth. Each decision was an end to a case, an investigation, a radio call or process and critical thinking was the means to the end.
Critical Thinking
There are many different views and definitions of critical thinking. In my research I discovered the following two definitions of critical thinking by experts in the field.
“Critical thinking is the use of those cognitive skills or strategies that increase the probability of a desirable outcome. It is used to describe thinking that is purposeful, reasoned and goal directed – the kind of thinking involved in solving problems, formulating inferences, calculating likelihoods, and making decisions when the thinker is using skills that are thoughtful and effective for the particular context and type of thinking
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