This purpose of this paper is to define critical thinking and decision making in my own words as well as the academic definitions provided in the textbook Critical thinking: Strategies in decision making. I will be discussing how critical thinking and decision making relate to each other and some of the benefits of being a critical thinker. Lastly, I will discuss how I see the process of critical thinking and decision making used at my place of employment.

For me critical thinking is what I do when I read or hear something that goes against my beliefs or against what I feel is rational. I sense a problem with or an opposition to what was written or spoken and I automatically start analyzing it for flaws in the reasoning. I find myself picking apart statements and looking for holes in the speaker or writer’s logic. I then try to justify my critique by comparing my beliefs or what I feel is the rational conclusion to the speaker or writer’s conclusion.

Decision making is what I do when I’m faced with a problem or situation in which I must find a resolution or make a choice. I usually and most often subconsciously follow a process to discover the resolution or arrive at the choice.

University of Phoenix (Ed.) (2001). Critical thinking: Strategies in decision making [University of Phoenix Custom Edition e-text]. Needham Heights, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing.

I’ve found several definitions in the course material for the terms critical thinking and decision making, each with subtle differences. One clear concise definition for critical thinking comes form the week one lecture notes, “a special kind of thinking devoted to the evaluations of ideas.” One definition in the textbook states that critical thinking is “systematic evaluation of arguments based on explicit rational criteria.” In section one the textbook breaks down critical thinking into two categories; weak-sense and strong-sense. “Weak-sense critical thinking is the use of critical thinking to defend your current beliefs. Strong-sense critical thinking is the use of the same skills to evaluate all claims and beliefs, especially your own.” Decision making is defined as “a complex process involving streams of information and events that get recognized as problems, a complex set of factors that affect what problems will get attention, and still another set of factors influencing where the continuum form the quick to convoluted the action will fall.” A description of decision making from the textbook states “decision making is seldom the logical, rational, systematic process suggested by the management textbo

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