https://www.macat.com/critical-thinking
Critical thinking skills make it easier to land a job
Surveys of senior HR professionals show that they prioritize critical thinking as the most valuable skill for employees to have. Considering possibilities outside of existing opinions is vital to effective thinking, and important in employment—where companies value innovative and creative thinking.
Thinking skills enhance academic performance
Scientific studies show that there is a strong relationship between the quality of students’ thinking skills and their academic ability. In addition, there is evidence that better thinking skills produce improvements in "learning to learn."
THE SCIENCE BEHIND OUR PLATFORM
Critical thinking is a process, not a single definable skill
Thinking clearly is not an innate ability. It requires you to develop a disposition to think critically, incorporating the six core PACIER skills into your everyday thinking.
Critical thinking skills can be used every day
Adept critical thinkers use their thinking skills at work, in education, and in everyday life to become more open-minded, rounded, and empathic individuals.
Thinking skills develop over time
Much like any skill, mastering critical thinking involves building upon existing skills and moving one from skill-level to the next with persistent practice.
Thinking skills improve more rapidly with purpose-built tools
Numerous experimental programs have concluded that people who regularly use tools designed to develop their thinking skills will make significant improvements.
DOWNLOAD THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE WHITE PAPER
Download a short paper from the University of Cambridge exploring the science behind Macat‘s thinking skills program in more detail.
HOW BETTER THINKING = BETTER JOBS
Laszlo Bock
Head of People Operations at Google
The twenty-first-century job market will care less about your grades than it will about your thinking skills.
That’s because it’s cognitive ability that determines your capacity to learn. "The combination of raw intelligence and learning ability will make most people successful in most jobs," explains Laszlo Bock of Google, which has announced it will no longer consider candidates’ alma maters or GPAs when it conducts job interviews.
Joe Lau
Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong
Being able to express ideas and cope with change is key.
The global knowledge economy is driven by the ever-faster flow of information, explains Joe Lau of the University of Hong Kong. That means it’s vital to deal with change effectively. "The new economy places increasing demands on flexible intellectual skills," says Lau. "Good critical thinking promotes such skills, and is very important in the fast-changing workplace."
Alison J. Head
Fellow, Harvard metaLAB
We have to meet the challenge of "staying smart" in an evolving world.
"What employers are looking for is whether somebody can find information, analyze it, and apply it to a solution," says Harvard’s Alison Head. Head studies the challenges facing lifelong learners looking to upgrade careers. "Whatever your job", she says, "you’ll need to come up with new ideas. Asking questions is a fundamental part of examining a situation."
Matthew Lipman
Former chair of the Department of General Education, Columbia University
Better thinking skills make your performance self-correcting.
Probably the best way to improve performance at work is to recognize mistakes while you’re still making them. Self-corrective working saves time and money, and delivers more impressive results. "The most characteristic feature of inquiry," wrote Matthew Lipman, one of the deans of modern education policy, "is that it aims to rectify what is at fault in its own procedures."
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