This document discusses critical analysis and its application to evaluating information and arguments. It defines critical analysis as standing back to thoughtfully consider all elements of a topic from different viewpoints before making a judgment. Students are encouraged to zoom in on details and zoom out to the wider context when analyzing information. They are provided questions to critically evaluate authors, arguments, evidence, and how information compares. As an example, students are asked to analyze different writers' perspectives on the purpose of higher education using these critical reading techniques. The document aims to teach students to thoughtfully analyze rather than accept information at face value.

1. Using information: going
beyond the point
• Explain what critical analysis
is
• Employ critical questioning
to visual and written sources
• Evaluate the argument in a
piece of text

2. In your groups, discuss what is happening in this image.

3. You have started to
critically analyse, so
what is critical analysis?
• Standing back and thinking about all
the elements of a topic
• Not taking information at face-value:
think about who has provided it, when
and where
• Considering an issue from different
viewpoints
• Comparing and contrasting
information
• Weighing up information and
viewpoints before making a judgement
• Asking and answering questions: talk
to yourself

4. • This means you need to
‘Zoom in and zoom out’:
• Zoom in on a single piece
of information and
analyse it in detail, then
zoom out to compare it
others and place it in a
wider context.

5. To zoom in and out, keep asking
questions of your information:
• Who is the author?
• Is there any bias?
• What is their argument?
• What method and evidence is used?
• What are its strengths and weakness?
• How does it compare with other
information?
• How is it relevant to what I am writing
about?
Remember the reading grid from week 4? You
can add your thoughts on these questions to
that too.

6. Have a go…
You have been given the question:
‘What is the purpose of Higher
Education?’
On your handout, add some
comments to this grid.

7. Have a go...
• You now have some extracts from four
different writers about what they think
the purpose of Higher Education is.
• In your groups, read and discuss them,
using some of the critical reading
questions.

8. Arthur H. Camins
Debate about the purposes of education
never seems to end. Should young people
become educated to get prepared to enter
the workforce, or should the purpose of
education be focused more on social,
academic, cultural and intellectual
development so that students can grow up
to be engaged citizens? With each new
workforce development or economic
competitiveness demand on our…schools,
there has been push-back from those who
want greater emphasis on a broader view of
education. But it doesn’t have to be either-
or. Education should prepare young people
for life, work and citizenship. Knowledge of
the natural and engineered environments
and how people live in the world is critical to
all three purposes of education. Critical
thinking, creativity, interpersonal skills and a
sense of social responsibility all influence
success in life, work and citizenship. For
example, unhappy personal relationships
often spill over into the work environment,
while a stressful workplace or
unemployment negatively impacts family
life. Uninformed disengaged citizens lead to
poor policy choices that impact life, work
and citizenship. To paraphrase the verse in
the old song, “You can’t have one without
the others.”

9. Paulo Friere
The goals and purposes of
adult education as societal
transformation and contended
that education is a
consciousness-raising process.
The aim of education is to help
participants put knowledge
into practice and that the
outcome of education is
societal transformation. major
aim of education is to help
people put knowledge into
action to recreate society.
Doing so, will enable people to
change the world – to
humanise it and to liberate
themselves. As such, the goals
and purposes of learning are
oriented to societal as well as
individual improvement.

10. bell hooks
The heart of education as a
practice of freedom is to
promote growth. It's very much
an act of love in that sense of
love as something that promotes
our spiritual and mental growth.
When people frequently ask me,
'What changed your life; what
enabled you to come from this
working-class, segregated home
where [your] parents were not
college-educated people into
being one of our nation's well-
known intellectuals?' [My
answer is,] 'It's there in that
space where I learned to be a
reader and a critical thinker.’

11. Mike Rustin
Opposition to the government's higher education
policy [of greater focus on employability skills] is from
people who has so far been expressed in very
traditionalist terms – with the idea that a university
has an intrinsic value and good. On the one hand, you
have the marketised view of universities as equipping
people to earn their living, and on the other hand, a
traditional view that universities are about pure
learning, but the students we have here have always
seen benefits beyond learning for its own sake. We
have really hard evidence to show that students are
fairly clear about why they want to go to university –
and for the vast majority, it is about getting a better
job and having a successful career. A lot of people say
what about learning for learning's sake? I find that
problematic. Everyone has a purpose for why they
want to learn.

12. More analysis…
• Which argument did you find the most
convincing? Why?
• Have your views changed?
• Note this down on your handout.

13. Online learning and homework this week
• Your blog – you may want to
include your reflection from
today
• On Canvas, go to Week 7 Activity
and enrol on the LJMU Equality,
Diversity and Inclusivity Canvas
module and work your way
through it.
• Complete Week 7’s ‘How are you
doing?’ activity and submit by
midnight on Thursday
• Don’t forget to complete
Assignment 1