Advanced Analytic Cognition: Critical Thinking

Everyone agrees that intelligence analysis is an intensely cognitive process and that the quality of an analyst s cognition determines the quality of his or her analysis. In the past ten years the intelligence community has increasingly used the term critical thinking to describe the cognitive aspects of analysis. This report discusses the results of a research effort involving the examination of over 500 documents related to critical thinking. The author found that: 1) little agreement exists on what critical thinking is, with multiple definitions of critical thinking in the literature of both intelligence analysis and other fields; 2) a wide variation in the description of the thinking skills and dispositions required to think critically is present across all fields; 3) training courses for critical thinking can be found, in all fields, with different objectives, content, teaching approaches, and opportunities for practice; 4) customized and standardized assessment tools exist that are tailored to different theories of critical thinking; and 5) the literature contains conflicting descriptions of how to apply critical thinking to the process of intelligence analysis. The report also includes recommendations for a roadmap for research and activities that will demonstrate the utility of critical thinking to the intelligence community. These activities will also identify the best way to integrate critical thinking into intelligence analysis to gain maximum benefit throughout the entire intelligence community.