We use cookies to enhance your experience on our website. By continuing to use our website, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time. Find out more
Instructor inspection copy request

E-book purchase
Choose a subscription

Downloaded copy on your device does not expire. Includes 4 years of Bookshelf Online.

close

Where applicable, tax will be added to the above price prior to payment.

E-book purchasing help

E-book purchase

E-books are granted under the terms of a single-user, non-transferable license, and may be accessed online from any location.

Contact information
E: Contact Us

Cover

Critical Thinking for Helping Professionals

A Skills-Based Workbook

Fourth Edition

Eileen Gambrill and Leonard Gibbs

Publication Date - May 2017

ISBN: 9780190297305

448 pages
Paperback
8-1/2 x 11 inches

In Stock

Description

Critical thinking values, skills, and knowledge are integral to evidence-based practice in the helping professions. Inflated claims of knowledge, both in the media as well as in the peer-reviewed literature, show critical thinking to be ever more important to decrease the influence of marketing in the guise of scholarship. Practitioners must be able and willing to think critically about decisions that affect clients' lives. This requires minimizing the influence of cognitive and affective biases, such as hindsight bias, and avoiding misleading framing of problems that may harm clients but contribute to the profit of involved industries (e.g. ignoring environmental sources of distress and focusing on client characteristics). This book continues to focus on engaging students as active participants in exercises designed to hone their critical thinking skills, drawing on related research and theory in a variety of related areas, including judgement and decision making. Exercises are included to help students enhance their skills in the process of evidence-based practice, including posing clear, relevant questions and locating and critically appraising related research. This fourth edition of Critical Thinking for Helping Professionals is for students of helping professions including social work, nursing, counseling, and psychology. Decision-making skills guided by an ethical compass are vital in all helping professions.

Features

  • Attention to knowledge as well as ignorance in making decisions
  • Attention to ethical issues
  • Exercises informed by real life obstacles and dilemmas in professional decision making, and designed to engage students in thinking critically about decisions
  • Inclusion of group as well as individual exercises
  • Content informed by research in related areas, such as expertise and common forms of propaganda
  • Highlights the close relationship between the process of evidence-based practice and critical thinking
  • Attention to the context of practice such (e.g. ever-present advertising of medications)
  • Encourages advocacy to decrease avoidable miseries
  • Identifies many useful websites and other resources of value
  • Attention to understanding of what science is and what it is not and the close relationship between ethics and views of knowledge

About the Author(s)

Eileen Gambrill, PhD, is Professor of the Graduate school and Emerita Hutto-Patterson Professor of Child and Family Studies, University of Caliornia at Berkeley.

Leonard Gibbs, PhD (1943 - 2008), was Emeritus Professor of Social Work, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire.

Table of Contents

    PART 1: CRITICAL THINKING AS A GUIDE TO DECISION MAKING
    Exercise 1 Making Decisions About Intervention
    Exercise 2 Reviewing Your Beliefs About Knowledge
    Exercise 3 Controversy: Invaluable for Problem Solving and Learning
    Exercise 4 Critical Thinking and Advocacy

    PART 2: RECOGNIZING PROPAGANDA IN HUMAN SERVICE ADVERTISEMENTS
    Exercise 5 Critically Appraising Human-Services Advertisements
    Exercise 6 Does Scaring Youth Help Them "Go Straight"?
    Exercise 7 Detecting Misleading Problem Framing
    Exercise 8 Following the Money
    Exercise 9 The Language of Propaganda

    PART 3: INCREASING YOUR SKILL IN AVOIDING FALLACIES, BIASES AND PITFALLS IN DECISION MAKING
    Exercise 10 Using the Professional Thinking Form
    Exercise 11 Reasoning-in-Practice Game A: Common Practice Fallacies and Biases
    Exercise 12 Reasoning-in- Practice Game B: Group and Interpersonal Dynamics
    Exercise 13 Reasoning-in-Practice Game C: More Cognitive and Affective Biases
    Exercise 14 Preparing Fallacy/Bias Festival
    Exercise 15 Fallacy Spotting in Professional Contexts
    Exercise 16 Avoiding Group Think

    PART 4: EVIDENCE-INFORMED DECISION MAKING
    Exercise 17 Applying the Steps in Evidence-Based Practice
    Exercise 18 Working in Interdisciplinary Evidence-Informed Teams
    Exercise 19 Preparing Critically Appraised Topics
    Exercise 20 Involving Clients as Informed Participants
    Exercise 21 Asking Hard Questions: Enhancing Assertive Skills
    Exercise 22 Evaluating Service Outcomes
    Exercise 23 Reviewing Your Expertise.

    PART 5: CRITICALLY APPRAISING DIFFERENT KINDS OF RESEARCH
    Exercise 24 Evaluating Effectiveness Studies: How Good Is the Evidence?
    Exercise 25 Critically Appraising Research Reviews and Practice Guidelines
    Exercise 26 Critically Appraising Self-Report Measures
    Exercise 27 Estimating Risk and Making Predictions
    Exercise 28 Critically Appraising Diagnostic Tests
    Exercise 29 Evaluating Research Regarding Causes

    PART 6: REVIEWING DECISIONS
    Exercise 30 Critically Appraising Arguments
    Exercise 31 Critical Thinking as a Guide to Making Ethical Decisions
    Exercise 32 Reviewing Intervention Plans

    PART 7: IMPROVING EDUCATIONAL AND PRACTICE ENVIRONMENTS
    Exercise 33 Encouraging a Culture of Thoughtfulness
    Exercise 34 Evaluating the Teaching of Critical Thinking Skills
    Exercise 35 Forming a Journal Club
    Exercise 36 Encouraging Continued Self-Development Regarding the Process of Evidence-Informed Practice and Policy
    Exercise 37 Increasing Self-Awareness of Personal Obstacles to Critical Thinking.

    References
    Index

Related Titles