Critical thinking

From EvaluationWiki

This really means 'evaluative thinking' not merely negative assessment. One definition of it is 'skilled and active interpretation and evaluation of observations and communications, information and argumentation.' (Critical Thinking: its definition and assessment (A. Fisher and M. Scriven, EdgePress, 1997). Contrary to the common stereotype, critical thinking requires strong creative thinking: for example, one cannot appraise a claimed explanation unless one can think of various alternative explanations of the same thing (a standard example of creative thinking), and check whether these have been excluded.