The Importance and Value of Critical Thinking, Reflection, and Self-Awareness

Critical thinking employs complex cognitive and mental processes in the brain, involving deep thinking and exploration to reach sound results. Coursera Staff (2023) stated, “Building your critical thinking skills means being able to advocate your ideas and opinions, present them in a logical fashion, and make decisions for improvement” (para. 4). We reflect through thinking, evaluating, and judging current and past events. The aim is improving the future by critically analyzing our thought process, inherent bias, judgments, and what we believe to be true against new information, facts, and perceptions. Cultural beliefs and norms, emotions, past experiences, and environmental factors can influence critical thinking and reflection.

Critical thinking and reflection are also vehicles of self-awareness. According to Sutton (2016), professionals and researchers have viewed self-awareness as a key way for people to deal with psychological distress and as a route to personal growth for mentally healthy individuals. Through self-awareness, we assess our actions, thoughts, and emotions to determine whether they meet our intrinsic standards. People who can think critically and reflectively have an excellent chance of becoming self-aware, which improves relationships and interactions with others. The three concepts of critical thinking, reflection, and self-awareness, when taken together, enhance growth from multiple perspectives. The remainder of this chapter will explore the importance of these concepts through the following aspects of an individual’s life: Educational, social, cultural, mental/emotional, professional, and historical.

Educational and Academic

Critical thinking, reflection, and self-awareness are necessary for educational and academic success. Akpur (2020) conducted a study that explored the connection between critical, reflective, and creative thinking, and how they can predict academic achievement. The results showed that critical, reflective, and creative thinking were positively and significantly linked to academic success, and served as strong predictors of academic achievement; this, coupled with constructive feedback, improved students’ academic processes.

These skills also help instructors to prepare their teaching by enabling them to determine the best teaching methods through facilitating class lessons and encouraging students to fully engage in their learning. Using these three approaches, students and instructors can think about or reflect on multiple issues to determine the best course of action in their learning and teaching. Students can apply their reflective skills to completing assignments, having class discussions, conducting research analyses, building relationships with peers and instructors, and dealing with their own issues in positive and thoughtful ways.

Through reflection and critical thinking, students can enhance their creativity not only in speaking, summarizing, and paraphrasing, but also in many kinds of writing. In practicums, students can use their reflective skills to learn, evaluate, and reflect on multiple methods to support clients while they learn to become successful community support workers. These skills are invaluable to instructors, enabling them to determine the best teaching methods to facilitate class lessons, provide constructive feedback, and encourage students to fully engage in their learning. Instructors also can use their reflective skills to evaluate students’ assignments and projects, provide constructive feedback to enhance students’ learning, and improve themselves by evaluating their progress to determine their strengths and identify their limitations.

Social: Connections with Others

The skills of critical thinking, reflection, and self-awareness are strongly linked to connections and relationships between people. Students with these skills are able to understand themselves, reflect on what is required in social situations, and are able to build relationships with others. This has many benefits for students, as they are able to form stable support networks, learn from others, and adjust their own behaviours, strategies, and approaches to become engaged members of society. These skills also help students to participate comfortably in class activities such as group work, projects, and study groups, because of their high level of social thoughtfulness.

The skills of critical thinking, reflection, and self-awareness enhance students’ judgment, evaluation, and sound conclusions, which leads to increased confidence while asking and answering questions in class and meeting with their instructors to improve their learning. In their practicums as community support workers, students can apply these skills to active listening, observing their clients, and thoughtfully determine how to support them to achieve their full potential in life.

Instructors will create positive and professional relationships with their students to encourage positive academic outcomes. Instructors will guide students on their educational paths by teaching and advising to gain knowledge, skills, expertise, and support for successful learning. Instructors can intentionally role model these skills in class and create opportunities to build relationships inside and outside of the classroom. The practice and application of these skills of critical thinking, reflection, and self-awareness are then applied in relationships with communities in which a CSW will work and engage.

Cultural: Diversity and Inclusion

Culture may be seen as the way of life of people from specific places who follow norms, values, and customs that become models in their everyday lives. A definition of culture provided by Weil (2018) is “a term pointing to all the products of human thought and action both material and non-material, particularly those that exist because we live in groups” (p. 8). According to Weil, culture is something we are born into, not born with; “culture is transmitted from one generation to the next, a process known as enculturation” (Weil, p. 8).

Critical thinking, reflection, and self-awareness enhance cultural respect, tolerance, and acceptance. According to Ricee (2022), “cultural competence is the ability to understand, communicate, and effectively interact with people from diverse backgrounds. It means being aware of and respecting different cultures, beliefs, and practices” (para. 2). Being culturally competent requires expanding ones’ skill set to interact cross-culturally in an effective and meaningful way. People with the skills to understand and interpret cultures critically and reflectively can connect with people from diverse cultural backgrounds.

New persons may find it challenging to adjust to new locations and cultural dynamics, but the ability to reflect gives them a stepping stone to success. Reflecting on one’s own cultural norms and values, seeing different cultural perspectives and values with curiosity, and seeking out support systems can ease the transition. Thinking critically and reflectively of one’s social and geographical location creates the space to understand other people’s way of life.

Reflecting on and learning about a new culture enables people to share their own culture, and community members who can think critically and reflectively will be able to understand that culture, which will create stronger relationships. This strong bond enhances their ability to work together and support each other, reduces the cultural boundaries that create distance among people, enables them to accept and respect each other’s culture collaboratively, and reduces confusion in their attempts to interpret each other’s cultures.

Mental and Emotional Well-Being

Reflective and critical-thinking skills help to maintain mental and emotional well-being and emotional intelligence. These skills improve the ability to explore and practise self-care activities. Self-care reduces the risk of burnout, which can cause depression, stress, mental challenges, and illness. Self-care practices may slow the body down, allowing it to work normally; this impacts individuals not only mentally, but also physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

Self-care increases mental and emotional stability through activities such as taking care of ourselves, eating a balanced diet, taking breaks rather than working consistently without rest, creating positive relationships, and doing what we love to do. For Indigenous people, following the teachings of the medicine wheel, participating in cultural ceremonies, and seeking the guidance from Elders to follow traditional Indigenous ways of knowing and being is essential for leading a healthy and balanced life.

There are many ways to find balance, self-care, and to feel at ease with oneself. As a professional, having a toolbox of self-care strategies, a support system, and a healthy work environment better prepares professionals to support their clients reflectively, support their self-growth, and foster self-fulfillment. According to Akpur’s (2020) research about the connection between critical, reflective, and creative thinking and health, he found that all three types of thinking have a positive and significant impact on patient health.

Professional Well-Being

Professional success demands participation in multiple career activities such as teamwork, professional training, ethical practice, best practice, positive relationship building, and understanding of organization culture. This requires that employees not only be able to depend on their supervisors and co-workers, but also to have self-knowledge, strengths, and the awareness and determination to decide what is best for them. They must be able to reflect, think critically, and know themselves in terms of their strengths, limitations, likes, dislikes, and relationships, to promote self-development. Employees with such abilities will progress even if the organization or workplace does not have a plan to aid them.

The skills of reflection and critical thinking become stepping stones to success because they help employees to become independent thinkers and improve their well-being. Moreover, these abilities enable employees to connect with other employees professionally to achieve the organization’s mission, meet their individual needs, and create professional relationships with clients or customers while maintaining professional boundaries for better service provision. The concept of connecting to others requires organizational policy as well as individual independent thinking. This is vital when working with others. Being able to reflect and think independently enables individuals to connect with others confidently, because they are not being forced to do so.

Evidently, critical thinking and reflection enhance the ability to participate in workplace professional activities with a positive perspective, thanks to the process of reflecting and thinking critically and deeply. Additionally, Afanasjeva et al. (2020) stated that individuals require knowledge, critical thinking abilities, and the capacity to progress in a professionally-focused learning setting. This can be achieved through subject knowledge, professional scenarios, case studies, and teaching methods, all of which significantly impact the success of students.

Past Reflections for Future Growth

We cannot create a successful future without thinking of the past. History has shown that an understanding of the past, along with an analysis of the present, leads to better outcomes in the future. This requires the ability to think critically, reflect, and be self-aware. As López-Fernández et al. (2023) pointed out, understanding history helps students develop their own historical knowledge, reasoning abilities, understanding of political realities, and recognition of different interpretations of historical events. This historical thinking allows students to reason and understand social reality, and to understand different interpretations of the same past event. Without knowing and being able to reflect on a client’s past, it is not possible to interpret and evaluate current progress. Individuals, whether they are employed or not, need the ability to evaluate their history to determine their progress, strengths, and future goals.

People change strategies based on their historical achievements, struggles, limitations, and strengths. Students who work with clients as community support workers must know how to support and encourage their clients to evaluate their past and historical achievements in order to make comparisons with the present; this will enable both to best support the client as they work towards goals.

In his discussion on the significance of critical thinking, Kim (2019, paras. 5–11) emphasized its role as a universal skill that holds great importance in the current knowledge-based economy. He highlighted its positive impact on communication, presentation abilities, and problem-solving, and noted its foundational role in science and democracy. Additionally, Kim underscored the metacognitive nature of critical thinking.

The ability to think critically, engage in reflection, and be self-aware provides many benefits. This skill set enhances mental health, emotional well-being, career development, social integration, cultural competence, and the ability to reflect on past events to reimagine the future. Learning strategies to develop these skills will be very beneficial to personal and professional growth. Along with developing strategies, we must be cognizant of the ways in which our brain may resist this change, as this will allow us to better adapt the strategies of learning these skills.

References

Afanasjeva, O., Vozgova, Z., Fedotova, M., & Smirnova, M. (2020). Critical thinking and teacher training development. Espacios, 41(9), 64–71. https://www.revistaespacios.com/a20v41n09/a20v41n09p07.pdf

Akpur, U. (2020). Critical, reflective, creative thinking and their reflections on academic achievement. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 37, 100683. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2020.100683

Coursera Staff. (2023, December 1). What are critical thinking skills and why are they important? Coursera. https://www.coursera.org/articles/critical-thinking-skills

Kim, B. (2019). Critical thinking. Oklahoma State University. https://open.library.okstate.edu/criticalthinking/

López-Fernández, C., Tirado-Olivares, S., Mínguez-Pardo, R., & Cózar-Gutiérrez, R. (2023). Putting critical thinking at the center of history lessons in primary education through error- and historical thinking-based instruction. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 49, 101316. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2023.101316

Ricee, S. (2022, December 29). Cultural competence: The ultimate guide to cultural proficiency. Diversity for Social Impact. https://diversity.social/cultural-competence/

Sutton, A. (2016). Measuring the effects of self-awareness: Construction of the self-awareness outcomes questionnaire. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 12(4), 645–658. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1178

Weil, N. (2018). Speaking of culture. https://uen.pressbooks.pub/speakingofculture/