An Exploration into Research on Critical Thinking and Its Cultivation: An Overview

The intellectual root of critical thinking can trace back to Socratics in ancient Greece. Since then, a variety of conceptions and models have been proposed, which constitute the theoretic core of critical thinking. They place different weights on different aspects of critical thinking. In the meantime, the cultivation of critical thinking commenced when Socrates attempted to apply theories of critical thinking into the instruction. Consequently, a variety of instruction approaches and strategies and assessment of critical thinking have been developed. However, there is still a dispute on whether critical thinking can be developed independently of subject content. The paper attempts to review research on critical thinking with the aim to discover commonalities and clarify the subtle differences among diversities of conceptions, models, instruction approaches and strategies, and assessment. The discovery and clarification could be significant for the instruction of critical thinking, especially, conducted in non-western countries.