Teaching Critical Thinking in Psychology: A Handbook of Best Practices

Chapter 9

Integrating Critical Thinking

with Course Content

David W. Carroll, Allen H. Keniston,

and Blaine F. Peden

In this chapter we explain some ways to integrate critical thinking into course content.

Our target audience is teachers of psychology who want to take this step but are unsure

how to do so. We offer concrete examples about how novices can devise and implement

critical thinking activities in their courses. For seasoned veterans who already teach their

students to think critically (Gross, this volume; Stanovich, 2007), we present an approach

that may lead them to see their efforts in a different light.

We define critical thinking as “reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what

to believe or do” (Ennis, 1986, p. 12). This definition encompasses skills such as assessing

evidence for an assertion (Browne & Keeley, 1986), applying concepts to new examples

(Halpern, 1998), recognizing gaps in knowledge (Gray, 1993), and recognizing fallacies in

arguments (Browne & Keeley, 1986).

The desire to teach critical thinking in our courses raises the issue of how to combine

course content with critical thinking. On the one hand, covering all the material in a

course could consume the entire term, leaving no time for critical inquiry. On the other

hand, critical thinking requires thinking about something, and thus has to be introduced

in terms of appropriate content. We believe that a balance between teaching course content

and exercising critical thinking can be achieved without compromising either goal.

This chapter consists of three sections. In the first section, we examine activities suitable

for a variety of psychology classes. We describe activities potentially useful to instructors

interested in incorporating critical thinking into their classes but not inclined to completely

reorganize their courses from a critical thinking perspective. In the second section, we discuss

how critical thinking may be infused throughout a course by presenting course case studies

for cognitive psychology and the history and systems of psychology. We believe this section

should interest instructors who already incorporate critical thinking activities in their courses

on a limited basis and wish to integrate thinking activities more fully throughout their

courses. In the final section we present our conclusions, discuss principles for the construction

or selection of good critical thinking activities, and identify some remaining issues.

Teaching Critical Thinking in Psychology: A Handbook of Best Practices Edited by D. S. Dunn, J. S. Halonen, and R. A. Smith