Applying Critical Thinking

In Unit 4, you began locating and evaluating high-quality research to support your practice in the field of psychology. In this unit, you added critical thinking tools to your repertoire to further critique research and its relevancy to research questions and practice. You were introduced to these models that support critical thinking:

• Bloom’s taxonomy
• Facione’s core critical thinking skills.
• Paul and Elder’s elements of thought.

For this discussion, compare and contrast these models.

• What do you see as their strengths and weaknesses?
• What do they share in common?
• What does synthesize mean within the context of Bloom’s taxonomy and Granello’s 2001 article, “Promoting Cognitive Complexity in Graduate Written Work”?
• How could you imagine using each as a practitioner-scholar working in your specialization?
• Give an example of how you would use each model to evaluate some content in one of the articles you located for your research project.

If you have any trouble understanding these models or the strategies in the Granello article, “Promoting Cognitive Complexity in Graduate Written Work,” use this discussion to receive support from your peers and instructor to work through your challenges.