Role of Organization in the Critical Thinking

¶ … Role of Organization in the Critical Thinking Process

Critical thinking is a process that includes, among others, the process of selecting or discriminating of information received from the environment or external stimuli. As an individual is exposed to various experiences that s/he empirically observes, the observer must first go through the process of selecting and organizing/ordering of these information and observation.

Adler (1998), in discussing the concept of information organization and selection, enumerates the process an individual goes through in ordering information, which is a vital process in critical thinking. The first steps towards organizing information in the critical thinking process is to establish origins of order, where information is grouped or categorized "meaningfully," also called "perceptual schema," which allows people to organize raw schema according to its significance and meaning to the individual (77).

In creating origins of order, the individual can categorize information according to physical, interaction, role, and/or physiological constructs. Physical constructs include information that are physically manifested, and can be experienced by the individual's senses (sensory perceptions). Interaction constructs, on the other hand, are information that are formed in one way or another by the individual as relating to a person or material that evokes a particular feeling towards him/her/it. For example, a friend may be considered as "thoughtful" or "loyal," and these two constructs are formed because of the interaction that happened between the individual and his/her friend (Adler, 1998:77).

Role constructs are closely related to interaction constructs, which takes into account the categorization of information according to its 'utility' in relation to the individual and the society. Thus, the individual's mother, father, or schoolmates are examples of role constructs that the person forms in the process of critical thinking. Lastly, physiological constructs, such as descriptions of attitudes and character, are independent constructs that an individual uses to assign definite terms that will describe a construct that is categorized under the role, physical, and/or interaction constructs.

After establishing the origins of order of information, it is important to distinguish between nature and mental orders. Nature orders are information that is called as such because they are empirically experienced by the individual. Mental orders, on the other hand, are constructs or ideas that are conceived from the individual's analysis, as a result of the integration of his/her accumulated knowledge (through experience). An appropriate example to illustrate the distinction between nature and mental orders is through the Eleanor Rosch's study on real-life concepts. In this study, Rosch identifies how, because of nature and mental orders, people have varying or diverse interpretations of a particular concept or construct. A "cup," for example, is a construct that may be interpreted through the experiential (nature) or theoretical (mental) orders. Thus, in the experiential domain, "cup" is identified as a material used for "holding solids and liquids," while its mental construct may be interpreted as an object used as either a "concrete" or "concave" objects (Santrock, 2001:258). Through nature and mental orders, individuals are able to identify clearly and think critically about the nature of a particular concept or construct.

After establishing these categories that distinguishes information into various groups, as well as into nature and mental orders, the critical thinker can now organize these information for easy 'retrieval' when in need. The process of organization at this phase now develops constructs into more abstract, yet systematized groups of constructs, called an organizing scheme. Organizing schemes of information may be constructive or detrimental to the process of critical thinking, since one adverse effect of organizing schema is that they result to stereotyping, defined as the "exaggerated beliefs associated with a categorizing system... they go beyond facts... And make claims that usually have no valid basis" (Adler, 1998:78). Despite its adverse effect, organizing schemes are efficient in that it further lessens the information needed be retrieved by the thinker because s/he has categorized them (information) under one group, with specific criteria considered.