Barriers to Critical Thinking Inside & Outside the Classroom
November 13, 10:00 US Eastern Time—Please note earlier start
Christopher P. Dwyer, PhD
Abstract:
Critical thinking (CT) is a metacognitive process, consisting of a number of skills and dispositions – that, through purposeful, self-regulatory reflective judgment, increases the chances of producing a logical solution to a problem or a valid conclusion to an argument. Though CT is among the most commonly desired traits of third-level graduates, it has been speculated that CT is often lacking in real-world settings. While this may result from many people not enjoying access to CT instruction at some point in their education or because of issues related to classroom-to-real-world transferability, another often overlooked concern worth considering is that of adequately addressing barriers to CT application.
Arguably, CT instruction typically focuses on what it is and how to do it, along with providing students opportunities to practice it. While teaching these is both necessary and beneficial with respect to knowing what to integrate within one’s thinking to yield positive outcomes, it is also important to know what to monitor and, in some cases, avoid as much as possible when applying CT. Thus, this discussion aims to address various barriers to CT often observed in real-world scenarios and explore methods of attending to these in training settings.
Bio:Christopher P. Dwyer is a researcher and lecturer, with a PhD in Psychology, who specialises in the fields of cognition, education and health research, with international expertise in the field of Critical Thinking. He is the author of the books Knowledge Doesn’t Exist & Other Thoughts on Critical Thinking (2025) and Critical Thinking: Historical Perspectives & Practical Guidelines (2017), both published by Cambridge University Press. Chris also authors an ongoing blog for Psychology Today, Thoughts on Thinking; and wrote the ‘Teaching Critical Thinking’ entry for the Sage Encyclopedia of Higher Education. He was the special guest editor for the Journal of Intelligence’s special issue on Critical Thinking in Everyday Life, published in 2025. Chris is also a co-applicant on the HRB-funded ‘A Cognitive Occupation-Based programme for people with Multiple Sclerosis: Definitive trial (COB-MS)’. He has over 40 peer-reviewed research papers and is currently working as a Senior Researcher at the Technological University of the Shannon on the TUS Impact project, funded by the HEA.
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