THE RELEVANCE OF CRITICAL THINKING FOR THE ONLINE SEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL CONTEXTS

Originally a philosophical preoccupation intensively practiced since classical antiquity, critical thinking is now a fundamental aim of formal education and the exploration of its connections with information literacy represents today a well established topic of research in educational sciences. This paper briefly contrasts the philosophical with the educational understanding of critical thinking, provides an overview of the social context which gave prominence to critical thinking in the sphere of education and describes the competencies associated with information literacy. The main features of the concept of critical thinking are established by conducting a comparative analysis of various definitions for critical thinking elaborated by renowned authors, including John Dewey’s account of reflective thinking and Benjamin S. Bloom’s description of analysis, synthesis and evaluation as educational goals, as well as of opinions on critical thinking held by academics belonging to different fields of study. Also, the online search in an educational environment is discussed from the perspective of the so called “pathologies of information”, whose most severe forms are depicted, and a set of criteria for conducting high quality online search for educational purposes is presented. The interplay between the resulting definition of critical thinking and excellence in online search as an educational instrument is explored and suggestions for using critical thinking in this area are advanced. The paper concludes that critical thinking significantly contributes to conducting high quality online search in educational contexts and also that, at a more general level, proficiency in critical thinking is indispensable for acquiring the competences pertaining to information literacy.