Critical Thinking and Academic Learning

As an educator, parent, and grandparent, I have often wondered about the connections between academic learning and critical and creative thinking skills. It seems to me that these thinking skills need to be directly taught, and that they enhance academic performance. However, I am also convinced that creative and critical thinking skills cannot be taught in a vacuum; they must be embedded into our curriculum and our daily lives. Children need to have something real to think about. As their knowledge base grows, they will use the tools of creative and critical thinking to enhance and hone their learning and academic performance.

Serendipitously while pondering this, I came upon this article by Eric W. Dolan in the June 24, 2025 edition of PsyPost: Cognitive Science, Critical thinking and academic achievement reinforce each other over time, study finds. The study, albeit small, conducted at Huazhong University of Science and Technology with160 Chinese students in grades four through six, explored the link between critical thinking and academic learning. Their findings suggest that “critical thinking skills and academic achievement influence each other in a bidirectional way during the upper elementary school years. This connection remained stable even after accounting for students’ general cognitive ability. The findings support the idea that teaching students to think critically and building their knowledge base can work hand in hand to support long-term academic development. The results showed that students who had higher academic achievement than expected for their own average performance also tended to show higher-than-expected growth in critical thinking skills at the next measurement point. The reverse was also true; students who scored higher than expected in critical thinking also tended to improve in their academic achievement over time. These patterns held even after controlling for general cognitive ability, suggesting that the two factors genuinely support each other in a meaningful way”.

Another finding of the study was that although students grew continually in critical thinking and academic achievement over the three years of study – fourth, fifth, and sixth grade – the biggest gains were seen between fourth and fifth grades. This correlates with some research that suggests that great cognitive leaps (especially into the realm of abstract thinking) occur as children approach the ages of 11 or 12. (Gifted children may reach this stage somewhat earlier.) The researchers hope to continue to examine the bidirectional effects inherent in this study in older students in the future. They expect that the results will continue to strengthen their findings.

Above all, the critical thinking study confirms that direct teaching of critical thinking skills, in conjunction with curriculum and life activities, is imperative; these skills are not necessarily inherent in students. So how can educators and parents/caregivers do this? Here are some concrete examples:

Teach children to observe. Expect them to slow down and look, listen, smell, taste, and feel. Encourage mindfulness, and celebrate journaling, and active listening. Help them keep track of their observations and reflect on what they are noticing.
Teach children to analyze. Help children find problems and evaluate situations. Help them discover the facts, data, or information about the problem that are important (or not important). They will need to learn to question, to gather unbiased research and data, and to objectively examine their findings.
Teach children to communicate effectively. This means engaging them in respectful discussions and debates about important topics. They need to learn to listen actively and thoughtfully and to share their opinions with grace in a rational and calm way.
Teach children about “educated guesses” or inference. As children grow in abstract thinking, help them to watch, listen, and read “between the lines”. Help them to interpret body language, vocal inflection, graphs, tables, images, etc. Teach them that things may not be exactly as they present.
Teach problem-solving skills. These include:
Finding a problem
Examining the facts, data, information
Looking for the positives and possibilities of an idea
Looking for the negatives and challenges of an idea
Trusting their “gut” or emotional response
Crafting a solution and determining a reasonable solution and path of action

For more information on decision-making/problem solving, and teaching these to children (or adults), check out the work of Edward de Bono and his Six Thinking Skills Hats technique.

Though I was not able to find any studies linking creative thinking and improved academic learning, my experience has taught me that infusing creativity and creative thinking into learning improves motivation and engagement, leading to increased academic performance. Though some children may prefer creative thinking and others critical thinking, all need to learn how to do both. And the good news is that these can be taught.

How about you? How do you infuse creative and critical thinking into your classroom, or in your daily life with children? How can you encourage educators to use these tools to increase learning? Please share your ideas. As always, I welcome your thoughts. Together we grow.

By Jackie Drummer, Past President and Current Board Advisor, WATG

Thank you to Esther Vazquez for her translation of this article for our Spanish-speaking educators and families.

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By Dal Drummer • November 10, 2025

Almost every week we see headlines in the news lamenting the current state of students and education. Titles such as these – “Chronic Absenteeism Continues to Plague School Systems,” “Why Do Students Spend So Much Time on Their Phones?,” “Should Phones Be Banned From the Classroom and Will That Improve Test Scores?" – are prolific and often worrisome. This often leads to proposed solutions, some which undoubtedly have been tried (both successfully and unsuccessfully) in the past. Why do educational leaders (and politicians) continue to “reinvent the wheel” by proposing and utilizing the same (but re-branded) solutions to student learning problems over the years, dropping one after another in favor of a latest “trend” that will supposedly fix everything? Why aren’t we getting results? I feel the above questions are related and may have an easy solution, one that has produced many studied and practical results. It is a solution that I have experienced in my decades of teaching as well. Recently I read an article in K-12DIVE entitled Drawing connections between art and science can improve academic outcomes by Briana Mendez-Padilla. K-12DIVE is a news outlet that provides business journalism and in-depth reporting on trends in the pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade education sector. In this article, students in Mississippi had persistent low test scores until the school decided to make changes and incorporate the arts (and even artists) to work with and alongside the sciences. As a result, test scores rose significantly, as did social interactions between students. In this article, the author points out that today’s teachers are often competing with technology for kids’ attention. Just taking away technology doesn’t insure greater learning, nor does ignoring it. Teachers need to utilize what attracts kids to technology if they want better attendance and better learning. The author points out that students learn best in different ways (as we know); some students have auditory learning preferences, some kinesthetic, and some visual. Some learn best by reading, others not. Many of today’s students are also heavily into music, movement, and video. This is evidenced by their “plugged in” behaviors and their preference for online creation and viewing. It then stands to reason that the more ways a teacher can present material or allow students to learn using their technology, the more the students will be involved in their learning. Learning or showing evidence of learning can be much more than drawing a picture of the plant cycle (straight out of the science book) or making a shoebox diorama, practices of the past. As educators, we need to move our practices into spaces that our students inhabit. Some simple examples about different ways of learning/demonstrating wave action using science and the arts together could be students acting out wave action through dance using their different music choices (singly or in groups). Teachers could also, using light, prisms, and paints, show how colors can mix and affect how we see our world, and then critically analyze the use of light and color in water portrayed in historic and contemporary works of art (found online, of course). Or students could create music that they feel mimics wave action, mixing and remixing existing music or creating their own. Many of them have technological expertise and a great desire to use it. By teaching our curriculum in their world, using the arts as a vehicle, will, many believe, generate renewed excitement in learning. Finally, in order to develop curricular connections between science and the arts, administrators have to deliberately set aside time for curricular collaboration. Collaboration isn’t something that just magically happens; it takes time, interest, and creativity to connect them, a marriage of will and skill! Professional development time should be used to develop curricular connections, therefore enhancing teachers’ skillsets. Better teaching makes for better student outcomes. Coordination between the arts and sciences shouldn’t take much of a monetary investment; it can often be free, and the results can be priceless. Many free connections exist within community arts organizations, and they can enhance a school or school system. I know this because of my decades of experience as a visual arts specialist and arts coordinator in Milwaukee’s Lincoln Center of the Arts. The arts and sciences have much in common. In fact, through the Renaissance period, the arts and sciences weren’t two separate fields. They were one! They have many connections. Let’s put them back together using today’s technology! See a need for this in your child’s school? Share this article (and others) with them. For more information I direct you to the following articles. https://artsintegration.com/what-is-arts-integration-in-schools/ https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/articles-and-how-tos/articles/collections/arts-integration-resources/what-is-arts-integration/ https://www.edutopia.org/topic/arts-integration/ - Dal Drummer, WATG Board Advisor

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