DBA Program Journey

According to Brown and Keeley ambiguity refers to the existence of multiple possible meaning for a word or phrase (Browne & Keeley, 2011, p.53). In the memo Ms. Castle mentioned some resources that justified her claim but also left a lot of ambiguity. Ms. Castle relied on the current success

Critical thinking is described as unbiased, clear and factual thought process that helps any student with any decision-making process. Critical thinking is an essential tool that every student will need to master to continue academic success. There are multiple phases of critical thinking as described by Benjamin Bloom which include remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating and creating. The critical thinking process starts by remembering. If we can remember what we read and apply key facts we will be able to move forward to understand what decisions we need to make. From there we can then apply the facts to the decision we have to make and innovate, or create, as needed.

Ambiguity is a concept I came across while reading The Book Thief, by Marcus Zusak. The novel discussed numerous paradoxes of the human experience, and thus stimulated my mind into exploring branches of philosophy previously unknown to me. Though the concept is a simple one, the source of ambiguity is much more complicated. From my reading of this story and study in a psychology class, I learned that one’s natural instinct and nurturing environment is what affects one’s perspective. Equally important, no matter how similar common the human condition is, everyone is different. No person has the same life experiences, and thus has a different perspective. These conflicting perspectives are what lead to ambiguity, which leads me to quite a harsh

After identifying the basic structure of a message, a critical thinker must ask, “What words or phrases are ambiguous?” (p. 40) An ambiguous word or phrase is one that has multiple possible meanings. Ambiguous words or phrases in an argument create the need for clarification of the meaning before a reader can fully evaluate the argument.

Teaching higher order thinking skills is not a recent need. It is apparent that students, at all levels of education, are lagging in problem-solving and thinking skills. Fragmentation of thinking skills, however, may be the result of critical thinking courses and texts. Every course, especially in content subjects, students should be taught to think logically, analyze and compare, question and evaluate.

On pages 387-402 of your textbook, you will meet Tanya, Kevin, Elise and Dalton, Tanya encounters a series of discussions—the first with Kevin and the second with Elise and Dalton. The textbook describes how to critically assess the arguments in these discussions (Kevin and Elise and Dalton). Use these ONLY as examples for how to use critical thinking skills.

     Chapter seven begins by explaining an example that would make the case against using ambiguity. In fact, the title of chapter seven is “Avoid Ambiguity”. While it is true that vague statements leave questions unanswered, the traditional idea behind gathering information is to find specific details and clear communicated

Clarity - To avoid confusion and provide the best information, it is essential to clearly identify what is we are trying to accomplish. We should be able to break down topics and ideas to their most specific forms.

On pages 387-402 of your textbook, you will meet Tanya, Kevin, Elise and Dalton, Tanya encounters a series of discussions—the first with Kevin and the second with Elise and Dalton. The textbook describes how to critically assess the arguments in these discussions (Kevin and Elise and Dalton). Use these ONLY as examples for how to use critical thinking skills.

Precision is when statements are exact or specific. Relevance is a big element of critical thinking. If a statement is not significant, it can distract from the assessment data that is important. Logic is another component of critical thinking, which involves making sure the conclusion makes sense.

The intellectual standards for critical thinking are Clarity, Relevance, Logicalness, Accuracy, Depth, Significance, Precision, Breadth, and Fairness (Paul, Elder, Chartrand, Emery, Hall, Ishikawa, Maketa, & Gunther, 2012). This list is not all-inclusive and there are others that can be used, however, these would be considered the most fundamental. First, Clarity is thinking that is easy to follow and understand, while Relevance is using everything essential in making a difference because it is important. Second, Logicalness or logical is a step by step process that is consistently providing a reasonable conclusion based on the confirmation of data. In addition, Accuracy is error-free information, ensuring that thinking is reliable, while Depth

The process of critical thinking requires you to ask more questions of both others and of yourself before a decision or determination is made. In order to successfully evaluate data in a critical manner, you must have a system in place to assess information as it is presented. In any situation whether you are having a conversation, observing others, or material you have read, you must be ready to probe deeper and ask the right question at the right time.

According to Supon, one of the fundamental purposes of teaching critical thinking is to enhance the abilities of students to become critical thinkers. Corporate leaders, educational researchers, employers, and parents have continually pushed teachers to assist their students in the development of critical thinking ability. Critical thinking is a skill that ?involved not only knowledge of content by also concept formation and analysis, reasoning and drawing conclusions, recognizing and avoiding contradiction, and other essential cognitive activities? (Supon, 1998).

Critical thinking is a significant and essential topic in recent education. The strategy of critical thinking skills helps identify areas in one's courses as the suitable place to highlight, expand and use some problems in exams that test students' critical thinking skills.

However critical thinking has no one, universally accepted definition. This perhaps represents the first difficulty in incorporating such skills into accounting education; no one can agree on what precisely critical thinking skills encompass (Young and Warren 2011). Pascarella and Terezini (2005, p.155) summarise these skills to include: