List of Contributors
J. Anthony Blair is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and fellow of the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation and Rhetoric at the University of Windsor. He is co-founder and co-editor of the journal Informal Logic, the co-author of Logical Self-Defense, and Reasoning: A Practical Guide. He has published many noted essays on reasoning and argument. He is a founding member and current executive committee member of the Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking, and a board member of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation.
Roland Case is the former Executive Director of The Critical Thinking Consortium, an international association working to support critical thinking from grade school to graduate school. Before retirement, Roland was Professor of Curriculum at Simon Fraser University. He has written various scholarly and professional articles on critical thinking and edits Critical Challenges Across the Curriculum, an award-winning series of teaching resources for critical thinking. In 2021, Dr. Case received the Governor General’s Meritorious Service Medal for his work on teaching and learning.
Robert H. Ennis is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy of Education at the University of Illinois, Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at New College, Florida, and former Professor of Philosophy of Education at Cornell University. He has long been interested in the conception and assessment of critical thinking, and in such concepts of research and assessment as causality, explanation, definition, reliability, and validity; often approaching issues from an ordinary-language point of view. He is co-author of three critical thinking tests and a book on evaluating critical thinking, and author of a critical thinking text and approximately fifty published articles.
Bart Garssen is lecturer in the Department of Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric in the University of Amsterdam. He is editor of the journal Argumentation (Springer) and of the Journal of Argumentation in Context (Benjamins). He has published on a wide range of argumentation topics, including empirical studies, of argumentation rules, argumentation schemes, and the study and teaching of reasoning from a pragma-dialectical perspective.
Carol Ann Gittens is Dean of the Kalmanovitz School of Education at Saint Mary’s College of California. In addition to her administrative roles, Dr. Gittens teaches courses in educational assessment, research methods, instructional technology, critical thinking across the curriculum, psychological foundations of education, developmental psychology, and community health education. Her scholarly works examine the relationship between critical thinking, motivation, and academic achievement in adolescent and young adult samples. She is author of the California Measure of Mental Motivation (CM3), a critical thinking disposition assessment instrument for children, adolescents, and adults, and the new Adolescent Reasoning Test (ART), a critical thinking skills test specifically for adolescents.
Leo Groarke is Editor in Chief of the WSIA series and President and Professor of Philosophy at Trent University. He is the author of many articles on informal logic, visual argument, fallacies, and competing approaches to argumentation theory. With Christopher Tindale, he has co-authored five editions of the popular Oxford University Press textbook, Good Reasoning Matters!
William Hare is Professor Emeritus at Mount Saint Vincent University. In 1995 he received the Distinguished Service Award from the Canadian Association of Foundations of Education, and in 1999, the Mary Anne Raywid Award from the Society of Professors of Education. His books include Open-mindedness and Education (1979), In Defence of Open-mindedness (1985), What Makes a Good Teacher (1993), and (with John Portelli) Philosophy of Education: Introductory Readings (2013).
Donald L. Hatcher is Professor of Philosophy at Baker University where he directs its Liberal Arts Program, a three-course requirement that integrates instruction in critical thinking and writing. He is the author of four books, including Reasoning and Writing: From Critical Thinking to Composition and Science, Ethics, and Technological Assessment. He has published numerous articles on critical thinking in Informal Logic and Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines.
Ralph H. Johnson is Professor Emeritus at the University of Windsor and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2003). He is the co-founder, co-editor, and co-publisher of Informal Logic, coauthor of Logical Self Defense (1977, 1st ed.; 1983, 2d ed.; 1993, 3d ed.; 1994; 1996) and author of Manifest Rationality (2000). He has given numerous workshops and papers on critical thinking in a variety of settings for the past 25 years. In 1993, Johnson received a 3M Teaching Fellowship for Outstanding University Teachers, one of ten such awards conferred that year in Canada. That same year he received the Laurel Award for Outstanding Teaching from the Lt. Gov. of Ontario. Johnson was regularly listed in the Maclean’s University issue as one of the most popular teachers at the University of Windsor.
Linda Kaser is co-leader of the Networks of Inquiry and Indigenous Education and the Aboriginal Enhancement Schools Network, and co-designer of and faculty member in the Certificate Program for School Management and Leadership (a graduate program for new school leaders) at the University of Victoria. She has worked as a teacher, principal, district leader, and senior policy advisor at the provincial level in British Columbia, and is an adjunct professor in the Education Administration Department at UBC. Her research interests include critical thinking in leadership development, networks of inquiry, and forms of shared leadership. Linda is the coauthor of Leadership Mindsets.
Sharon Murphy is Professor of Education and Associate Dean, Academic at York University in Toronto, Canada. Her research interests include assessment and literacy learning. She has co-authored or co-edited books on literacy education (Literacy Education Through Language Arts), arts education (Telling Pieces: Art as Literacy in Middle Grade Classes), literacy assessment (Fragile Evidence: A Critique of Reading Assessment), and curricular materials in literacy (Report Card on Basal Readers), and has written numerous articles in academic and professional journals and books.
Gerald Nosich is Professor Emeritus at the State University of New York Buffalo State and at the University of New Orleans. His book Learning to Think Things Through: A Guide to Critical Thinking across the Curriculum (Prentice Hall) has been translated into Arabic, Chinese, and Spanish. He is also author of Reasons and Arguments (Wadsworth), of articles and videotapes on critical thinking, and (with the Foundation for Critical Thinking) has given over 250 workshops on numerous aspects of critical thinking, particularly on teaching for and testing of critical thinking. His most recent book, Critical Writing: Using the Concepts and Processes of Critical Thinking to Write a Paper, was been published by Rowman & Littlefield in 2021.
Jan Sobocan is an educational consultant and tutor who teaches critical thinking and writing privately. In the past, she was hired to incorporate critical thinking into pre- and post- tests she built for the Federal Government of Canada. Her Master’s degree thesis was devoted to the meaning of critical thinking for educators, philosophers and curriculum developers. She was a social foundations lecturer, exam committee member and instructor in the area of policy/curriculum at the Faculty of Education at The University of Western Ontario for many years. She specializes in the areas of critical thinking and testing, literacy, and citizenship education and edited the “Legal Digest” volume for teacher candidates at UWO. She has conducted many workshops and short courses with teacher candidates in the area of assessment and evaluation of critical thinking skills. Her professional and PhD work included extensive analyses of international curricula for the presence of critical thinking with respect to its role in national and global citizenship education.
Frans H. van Eemeren is Emeritus Professor of Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric in the University of Amsterdam. With Rob Grootendorst, he is the founder of pragma-dialectics, a theory that has become one of today’s most influential approaches to the study of argument and critical discussion. His many books include Speech Acts in Argumentative Discussions, The Study of Argumentation; Handbook of Argumentation Theory; Argumentation, Communication, and Fallacies, and Argumentative Indicators in Discourse.
