Military Review English Edition November-December 2015 | Page 118

achieve consensus on their definitions. Following research and collaborative discourse during faculty development sessions, the researchers adopted the definition
used by Army Doctrine Reference Publication 5-0, The
Operations Process: “Critical thinking is purposeful and
reflective judgment about what to believe or what to do
in response to observations, experience, verbal or written
expressions, or arguments.”7
To determine the specific critical thinking skills
most needed by the graduates, the researchers started
with the results from the job-task analysis. Then, they
drew upon doctrine and the input from deployed and experienced team members.
Because any human terrain team’s research and analysis would be valuable only if they could be communicated in a manner that fit into the supported staff ’s battle
rhythm, the researchers also drew heavily upon the
staff ’s and faculty’s experiences working on Army staffs
and teaching at the United States Military Academy and
the School of Advanced Military Studies. The researchers also conducted an extensive review of the academic
and professional literature. Through this process, they
identified three main critical thinking skills:
Verbal reasoning: the ability “to comprehend
and defend against the persuasive techniques found in
everyday language.”8
Argument analysis: the ability to judge how
well reason and evidence support a given conclusion
or assertion.9
Thinking as hypothesis testing: the ability to base
hypotheses on and formulate beliefs effectively from
observations while remaining open to new and possibly disconfirming information.10
Individuals combine these three skills using cognitive self-regulation so they can separate an argument from rhetoric (verbal reasoning), determine the
validity and soundness of an argument (argument
analysis), and remain open to—and even seek—new
information that challenges their existing belief or
conclusion (thinking as hypothesis testing).
The researchers also learned early in the process
that a person’s disposition to think critically was just
as important as his or her critical thinking skills.
Moreover, the more emotionally involved people
were with a subject, the less they tended to use their
critical thinking skills even if they were naturally
inclined to think critically.11 The program managers

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accounted for this through the design of realistic
training scenarios that would engage the students
both cognitively and emotionally.

Faculty Members Who Integrate
Critical Thinking Instruction into
All Classes and Effectively Model
Critical Thinking Skills
The fourth key is to ensure faculty members integrate and reinforce critical thinking skills instruction
throughout all other classes and exercises. The entire
faculty must be engaged. They need to view themselves
as instructors of critical thinking skills in addition to
their assigned subjects. Moreover, individual instructors need to see the relationships between their and
other instructors’ subjects.
Initially, the Human Terrain System was like many
other military and civilian educational institutions
in that the program taught critical thinking skills as
stand-alone classes. During this time, the instructors enjoyed teaching critical thinking skills, and the
students generally provided very favorable feedback
on post-course surveys. However, although everyone
was enjoying the instruction, reports from the field
repeatedly indicated that graduates were failing to
demonstrate the required critical thinking skills and
behaviors where it mattered most—on the job.
Made possible by the then-established organizational climate that embraced change, the Human
Terrain System implemented a faculty development
program focused on critical thinking skills, with three
main purposes: (1) to ensure the entire faculty understood the specific critical thinking skills required
of the graduates; (2) to identify where these critical
thinking skills would be applied, reinforced, and
assessed throughout the curriculum; and (3) to ensure
the faculty were fully prepared to model F