What is critical thinking? What is decision making? These seemingly simple questions can have very complicated answers. I define critical thinking and decision making as the following:

• Critical thinking is a learned skill that individuals can use to judge the merit of statements and ideas.

• Decision-making is the process by which we evaluate alternatives and select options for implementation.

As Browne, Keeley, McCall, Jr., and Kaplan, (2001, p.5), define it, the critical thinking skill requires that individuals be aware that a set of interrelated critical questions exist and that they be able and willing to ask and answer these questions at appropriate times. Browne, et al. (2001, pg 50) define decision making as an inextricably intertwined set of sta

• Information technology applications and technical infrastructure decisions will be based on industry proven and supported components, methods, standards, and tools consistent with industry technological and market direction and as defined by the Enterprise Architecture. Both “de facto” and “de jure” standards can be industry-proven and supported. Vendor-neutral “de jure” standards are, in general, preferable to proprietary “de facto” standards.

How Do We Integrate Critical Thinking into Our Decision-Making?

Now that we have defined what critical thinking and decision making are, we need to answer the question: “How are critical thinking and decision making related?” Before we can answer this question, we need to answer a few other questions.

It is obvious that we can make decisions without the use of critical thinking. In fact, we make many decisions every day that do not involve any thinking at all (Helliwell 2000). These decisions are ones that we make out of habit. We do not think about whether we should or should not do these things, we just do them. On the other hand, we often need to make decisions that can have far-reaching effects. These types of decisions are the ones that we agonize over and think about constantly before finally making our choice. Do these decisions have to involve critical thinking? The truth is, the answer is no. We are not required to include critical thinking in any of the decisions that we make.

If we are not required to include critical thinking in our decision-making, why should we? When we integrate critical thinking into our decision making process we add a new tool to our mental toolbox. This t

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