Critical Thinking: Essential Skill Components as the Basis for its Development

Abstract

The ability to think critically is considered one of the main skills of the XXI century. Its development is considered in the state educational standards as an important meta-subject educational result. The aim of the study is to identify the main skill components of critical thinking. Methods. Analysis of scientific literature, generalization of results. Results. During the analysis of the literature, it was revealed that, on the one hand, critical thinking is not reduced to formal logic, on the other hand, the literature does not define what is part of critical thinking except formal logic. At the same time, without defining the structure of critical thinking, the skills that are part of it as a mental activity, its effective development is hardly possible. Theo­retical analysis of articles on the research problem and consideration of tasks proposed as a means of developing critical thinking allowed us to identify the composition of critical thinking skills and describe them. Conclusions. The development and solution of tasks and tasks aimed at the formation of critical thinking components will allow not only to develop it, but also to master the ability to work with information.