Recent studies show that employers believe critical thinking skills are 99.2% essential for every job, however only 55.8% of graduates applying for the jobs allegedly have adequate critical thinking skills for the role they are applying for. 

Critical thinking is not a skill that is typically taught in school, or even at most universities here in the UK, but is so desired by employers. To help you get a clearer understanding of what critical thinking is and you can start to think critically,  have come up with an easy to understand breakdown ensuring your application stands out when applying for graduate jobs.  

In the UK, there are two world-renowned universities that incorporate critical thinking skills at the core of  their teaching, and are just  one of the many reasons why graduates have a lot of success when applying for jobs;  the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge. 

Tutorials at the University of Oxford are 150+ years in the making and are based around an open line of communication between students and their tutor. In these hour-long, typically weekly sessions, students have a  chance to discuss their subject in depth with an expert and receive personalised feedback and advice from their tutor. 

This way of teaching gives students an opportunity to practice and perfect their critical thinking skills through deep analysis and ask questions to better understand the subject they are learning. 

At Melio, our teaching mirrors that of the University of Oxford which not only gives our students a chance to experience teaching at the level of one of the top universities in the world, but also helps develop those highly sought-after critical thinking skills.

As a result, students have a more rounded analysis of their subject, are able to form and discuss topics in-depth, considering all viewpoints. Their thinking becomes less narrow-minded, more creative, and as a result, enables better decision-making.

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking has many complex definitions, but in its simplest forms it is the ability to think more creatively, clearly and rationally - understanding the logical connection between ideas. When students are able to think critically, they are able to analyse facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to form a balanced judgment - one that considers all sides of discussion.

In addition, critical thinking can also be identified to have 5 key skills by LinkedIn, one of the top UK job sites:

Observation

Observation is the starting point for critical thinking, people who are observant can quickly sense and identify a new problem. They may also be capable of understanding why something might be a problem, and could even be able to predict when a problem might occur before it happens. 

Analysis

Once a problem has been identified, analytical skills become essential in determining next steps. 

The ability to analyse and effectively evaluate a situation involves knowing what facts, data or information about the problem are important. This also often includes gathering research, asking relevant questions about the data to ensure it’s accurate and assessing the findings objectively.

Inference

Inference is a skill that involves drawing conclusions about the information you collect and may require you to know technical or industry-specific knowledge or have experience in this area. 

When you make an inference, it means you are developing answers based on limited information. For example, a doctor may need to infer what is causing a patient to feel unwell at seemingly random times based on the information available to them.

This is where ‘practice makes perfect’ comes into play - the more times you are able to correctly decide upon conclusions based on limited information, - the better you get at doing this. 

Communication 

Communication skills are important when you have to explain and discuss issues and their possible solutions with colleagues, tutors or employers. This is a key part of critical thinking that is practiced in Oxbridge tutorials and on Melio courses. 

Usually, students will have weekly hour-long tutorials with their tutor and/or with one other student. They may sound intense at the start, but give you an open, supportive platform with which to test your communication skills, share more knowledge on topics, and become a more confident speaker.

Problem solving

After you’ve identified and analysed the problem and chosen a suitable solution, the final step is to execute your solution. 

Problem-solving often requires critical thinking to implement the best solution and to understand whether or not the solution has worked. This then will improve your critical thinking skills in the future - by drawing from past experiences and learning from them. 

What’s the importance of critical thinking?

Critical thinking is crucial not only in the workplace but also in your personal life. It’s a transferable skill that will help you better understand and evaluate problems that come up and solve them in an effective and efficient way. Being able to draw on previous experiences is a key part of critical thinking and so the more you practice this skill the better you will get at it - so it’s important to start doing this as soon as possible! 

Critical thinking will also enable you to better express your thoughts, ideas, and beliefs. Better communication through practicing critical thinking helps others to understand you better and enables you to express your ideas in an efficient way. Critical thinking fosters creativity and out-of-the-box thinking that can be applied to pretty much any area of your life.

As a student, learning how to think critically will help you make good decisions, understand the consequences of actions and solve problems. It will also make it easier for you to make connections and communicate with others which is important when networking as a student. 

How to think critically: 7 steps to success 

Now we have a better understanding of what critical thinking is, and its importance in the modern world, let’s get a better understanding of what you can do to start thinking critically - especially if this study skill is completely new to you.

As before, I will use the example of a doctor working out what is wrong with a patient to best describe how you can think critically. This is the type of thinking process you can practice when applying critical thinking to your workplace or education or problems you have in your everyday life. 

Knowing how to think critically will help you to use data and reasoning to solve problems, communicate the solutions and then reflect to see what went well and what you could improve on. Completing these steps one at a time ensures you won’t get too overwhelmed with the whole process. 

Identify a problem/issue

First of all, the patient will go to see a doctor and describe their symptoms. This gives the doctor a chance to identify the specific problems (symptoms) that they will need to solve.

In this stage, you’ll be given a problem - such as an essay title or exam question at school - that requires a thoughtful, balanced discussion, followed by a decisive conclusion. For this case, let’s assume you are writing an essay on; “how loneliness plays a central theme in John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men.” 

Create inferences on why the problem exists and how it can be solved

As mentioned in the earlier example, the doctor then will infer what is causing the patient's symptoms based on the information from the patient and their previous experience working as a doctor. 

This is your opportunity to use what you already know about a particular subject or topic and make knowledgeable assumptions about the problem and its connections to the key information you have already pulled. 

For example, if you’ve already read Of Mice and Men in class - can you recall any discussions you had about the theme of loneliness? Is there anything you remember about the characters or their behaviours that reminds you of that theme?

Collect information or data on the issue through research 

The doctor will then collect data from the patient.  This could be in the form of blood tests, X-rays, various exams, to get as much information as possible to solve the problem. 

In this stage, you want to collect as much evidence, facts, figures, and as much other relevant information as possible, so you are able to sift through it all and start drawing connections. 

For example, for your essay “how loneliness plays a central theme in John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men,” you would want to sift through the book drawing out all relevant quotes, character descriptions, as well as reviews, articles, and other literary criticisms on the topic - giving you a wealth of information to start analysing.

Organise and sort findings

The next step for the doctor will be to get the results of the various tests completed and sort these findings into what is relevant to helping the patient and what is not. It is from this that the doctor will hopefully be able to know what is wrong with the patient.

For you as a student, this is when you want to sift through all that information you have gathered, and start organising it in a way that will help you answer the overall question. Are there any articles that share common lines of thought? Is there anything contradictory? Placing everything in ‘related’ groups will help you start building initial connections between material - making it easier to draw conclusions later on. Plus, it’s so much easier to work with organised material.

Develop and execute solutions

At this point in the critical thinking process, the doctor will decide what the best course of action is to help the patient. Developing and executing this solution will involve deciding what type and quantity of medication to give the patient. 

Now here comes the most time-consuming aspect of your work as a student. This is where you need to sift through all your information, gather all the different ideas, draw connections, and then structure it into ‘piles’ of different lines of thought. 

For example, for the purpose of your essay on loneliness, you may group information into; how loneliness is depicted in George, how loneliness is depicted in Lenny, then by Curly - and so on. You may even then find connections between these different depictions to understand any central themes or ideas by the writer.

Analyse which solutions worked or didn’t work

After then giving the patient a suitable prescription for their illness, the doctor will assess their progress and decide whether to alter the medication or if it is working appropriately. 

Once you have all your different arguments distributed into different lines of thought, you can draw a logical conclusion using all the information you have obtained. Always read through your conclusion and check that you’ve addressed everything you’ve mentioned throughout your essay/debate/discussion - checking that you’ve genuinely looked through all the different opinions and evidence to reach a balanced solution.

Identify ways to improve the solution

If the first solution didn’t work, the doctor now will identify how to improve the situation. This may involve doing more tests or changing the medication or amount prescribed for the patient. 

For you as a student, this is where you might read through your drafted work and look for any areas of weakness or where you haven’t provided a clear-enough explanation or may need to expand on a view. You may even think of new ideas or lines of discussion, opening your scope to a much more balanced argument overall. 

In tutorials, this is where your tutor will prompt you - giving you personalised feedback on your work and giving suggestions on where you may have missed a particular viewpoint or not given enough ‘airtime’ to a particular line of debate. Over time, you’ll learn to widen your thinking and write in a fairer way.

While this is a very vague example using a patient and doctor analogy, I hope this gives you an idea of how you can use critical thinking to help with difficult situations in your professional and personal life. 

The whole process of thinking critically can happen over a number of days or even weeks as you gain more experience and information around the subject, so don’t panic if it moves slowly!

How to improve critical thinking - join Melio Tutorials

There are some simple ways you can improve your critical thinking skills, like actively practicing critical thinking with problems that you face in your day to day life. As I mentioned earlier it’s a good idea to start using critical thinking in your life as early as possible as practice makes perfect when it comes to this skill. 

Melio tutorials take influence from the Oxford Tutorial Method and encourage our students to have an open line of communication with their tutors to discuss specific topics and receive personalised feedback. Our One-on-One Tutorials are our most bespoke courses at Melio, delivered in hourly sessions, starting from 10, students are able to schedule the course around other extracurricular activities. 

Not only will this course enable you to perfect a subject you are passionate about, or give you insight into new topics, but you will get the chance to practice your critical thinking skills before you go to university or apply to jobs. 

For more information on how you can participate in one of our courses and improve your critical thinking skills, visit our website or contact our admissions team.