Critical thinking and business education
Date
1995
Authors
Macnaughton, Niall Forrest
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Abstract
This is a qualitative and descriptive study - the result of collaboration between and among the researcher and sixteen local business executives. The views of these people were juxtaposed with educational research and literature pertaining to the topic of critical thinking.
Four themes appear to have emerged during this study:
1. There are different views and perceptions about critical thinking that can be reconciled through discussion and exploration of the meanings or intentions of words that local business people use to describe and illustrate critical thinking.
2. In general terms, the types of critical thinking explored and defined here are both deductive and inductive. It appears that both are necessary for critical thinking to be defined fully.
3. Story-telling, analogies, vignettes, metaphoric language, and the jargon of business were forms these business people used to illustrate and describe their own thinking activities, and from which their personal definitions seemed to emanate.
4. Critical thinking, it appears, is considered by these business people as a kind of thinking that could be learned in one context and transferred to another.