Productive thinking	155

Use auxiliary critical thinking abilities

1.proceed in an orderly manner appropriate to the situation, for example,

a follow up problem-solving steps b monitor their own thinking

c employ a reasonable critical thinking checklist

2.be sensitive to the feelings, level of knowledge, and degree of sophistication of others

3.employ appropriate rhetorical strategies in discussion and presentation.

Evaluation

Ennis defines the basic areas of critical thinking as ‘clarity, basis, inference and interaction’, which he has then broken down into the list of abilities. He acknowledges the importance of the content domain in which critical thinking is applied. He acknowledges that his taxonomy does not incorporate suggestions for ‘level, sequence and repetition in greater depth, emphasis or infusion in subject matter area, which might be either exclusive or overlapping’. He claims that the first two dispositions are ‘essential’ for critical thinking and that the third, sensitivity to others, is ‘correlative’ and desirable rather than ‘constitutive’ (Ennis, 1996, p. 171). The ‘taxonomy’ is therefore a list of dispositions and abilities relevant to critical thinking. Ennis does not include reflection as a major heading, despite its explicit role in his definition of critical thinking.

The underpinning values of Ennis’ work are those of rationality and logical thinking, with little attention paid to the impact of feelings on thinking. For this reason he has been challenged by Martin (1992) about the ‘dangerous distance’ required for critical thinking. Elsewhere, Ennis defends critical thinking against cultural bias (1998), whilst accepting that culture and context have serious implications for such an approach. He has also vigorously defended the concept of critical thinking dispositions as extending across subject boundaries.

Ennis aimed to produce a taxonomy which enables critical thinking to be used practically. He says that his taxonomy is ‘simple and comprehensible’ (1996, p. 173) and considers that it can be implemented successfully in different ways, though he acknowledges that

156 Frameworks for Thinking

it needs further research to validate detailed aspects. As it stands, it should be particularly useful for analysing curriculum units in critical thinking or auditing subject-specific critical thinking programmes. However, the number and relevance of the broad categories and their sub-categories to particular fields may make it somewhat daunting to apply.

Although Ennis’ list of critical thinking abilities may also be helpful in the field of assessment, the assessment of critical thinking per se is problematic. Ennis analyses different approaches to assessing critical thinking, rejecting multiple-choice assessment for all but selfassessment and research. He also questions performance-based assessment on grounds of cost, focus and context (the more realistic the performance the more complex the problem). Context-based assessments require information gathered over time and across a range of situations (Blatz, 1992).

Summary: Ennis

				Relevance for
Purpose and structure		Some key features		teachers and learning
Main purpose(s):		Terminology:		Intended audience:
•	to provide a	•	sparing use of	•	designers of
	rationale for critical		technical terms		instruction and
	thinking				assessment
•	to set out a			•	teachers
	taxonomy of			•	college students
	objectives for
	critical thinking
Domains addressed:		Presentation:		Contexts:
•	cognitive	•	through a series	•	education
•	conative		of articles and	•	citizenship
			books
		•	clearly set out, but
			some may find

it rather difficult to apply in a particular field