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Bulletproof thinking, which is indispensable to everyday success, requires training and practice to master. Much of the study in an undergraduate Psychology degree is aimed at teaching students content knowledge. However, professionals, and active citizens, need to know how to effectively formulate and appraise ideas, arguments, claims, and evidence. Professional success is largely dependent on individuals’ ability to think critically about issues that arise and be able to creatively and critically solve problems. In order to do this, students need to learn how to utilise logic, carefully appraise empirical evidence and reasoning, and formulate as well as analyse arguments when evaluating claims and solving problems. Students also need to be aware of the shortcomings of the perceptual apparatus and cognitive machinery they bring to critical thinking that renders the thinking processes and their outcomes suboptimal. This course explicitly instructs students on the types of biases and distortions that interfere with our everyday ability to accurately form and test beliefs. It also provides them with a varied toolbox of strategies to formulate and critically evaluate claims, process ideas and evidence, and construct and analyse arguments.

This course will provide you with the skills you need to think critically and creatively. In this course you will be provided the opportunity to examine your own beliefs, and possible biases, and how these may influence your capacity to make accurate inferences, and formulate more objective and unbiased interpretations. This course will provide you with the opportunity to develop skills in analysis, synthesis, logical deductive and inductive inferences, and problem-solving. You will learn how to properly use and critique evidence and defend decisions based on a careful analysis of the available information. Students will learn how to clarify goals, life values, identify conscious and unconscious influences on their thinking and behaviour, and how to apply a rigorous framework for making accurate interpretations, and clearly communicating and defending their viewpoints.

On completion of this course students should be able to:

1. understand the role and value of critical thinking in modern society and the workplace;
2. recognise and defend against the major formal and informal fallacies of human reasoning;
3. critically evaluate claims that arise from myth, stereotype, pseudoscience or untested assumptions;
4. apply logic and evidence to critically evaluate and to develop arguments;
5. articulate a rigorous and objective attitude in thinking and learning;
6. articulate an understanding of the psychological basis underpinning critical thinking and problem solving skills;
7. apply critical thinking and problem-solving skills when solving applied problems.