INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING

Analytical Skills for the 21st Century: How to Help Students Think Smarter

10 March 2025/ By Zineb DJOUB

The ability to think analytically is vital in today’s world. Employers constantly seek individuals who can break down complex problems, interpret data, and make informed decisions. The World Economic Forum’s “Future of Jobs Report (2023) ranks analytical skills as the most in-demand competency for workers. Similarly, research from the McKinsey Global Institute predicts that analytical abilities, like advanced data analysis, will be among the fastest-growing skills over the next decade (Bughin et al., 2018).

So, what exactly are analytical skills, and how can educators help students develop them?

What are analytical skills?

Analytical skills involve breaking down problems, systems, or ideas into parts, identifying patterns or relationships among data, drawing conclusions, and articulating how the parts relate to the whole.

These skills encompass critical thinking, creative thinking, problem-solving and communication.

Examples of analytical skills in learning

Data analysis: In history, students interpret primary and secondary sources, analyse their credibility, seek corroboration and put them in their historical context.

Problem-solving: In science, students design and conduct experiments to test hypotheses, analyze results, and refine their conclusions based on evidence (e.g., testing the impact of temperature on plant growth).

Pattern Recognition: In literature, students identify recurring themes, such as sacrificial love in O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi, and analyze how they shape the story’s meaning.

Decision-making: Across subjects, students identify their short-term and long-term goals related to academics, personal development, or career aspirations.

Communication: During debates and discussions, students analyse different viewpoints, construct coherent arguments, and critically evaluate opposing views.

Analytical skills can be applied to discover trends in data, identify cause-and-effect relationships, make connections between factors, identify patterns or themes, and draw conclusions or theories.

Analytical skills vs critical skills

Analytical skills encompass many cognitive skills, including critical thinking.

Research has found a strong correlation between these two skills. For example, Demir‘s (2022) study, which analyzed data from 433 high school students, reported a correlation of .75 between these students’ analytical thinking skills and critical thinking dispositions.

The study also found that analytical thinking accounted for 57% of the variance in critical thinking dispositions, highlighting their close relationship.

Although analytical and critical thinking skills overlap, they serve distinct but interdependent functions.

Analytical thinking involves breaking down information into smaller parts to understand how it works. Critical thinking is necessary for such understanding, as it requires evaluating, interpreting, and forming judgments about that information.

So, critical thinking relies on analysis as a subskill.

Since analysis is a fundamental critical thinking component, students need to develop both skills. For example, a student may need to use analytical skills to analyse research findings and then evaluate their reliability using critical skills.

Using both skills ensures a deeper understanding and more effective learning.

Activities to strengthen analytical skills in students

To develop students’ analytical skills, focus on activities that require thinking—solving problems, making decisions, and developing new understanding using disciplinary methods and tools.

While analytical thinking varies across subjects, all students benefit from structured activities that deepen their reasoning and comprehension.

Beyond mind mapping and higher-order questioning, here are seven engaging research-based activities (Ritchhart, Church, & Morrison, 2011) that can help students critically and systematically analyse information.

1. See-Think-Wonder: Observing, interpreting and reflecting

• See: Students observe carefully an evocative photo, artifact, video clip, excerpt of text, political cartoon, or chart.
• Think: They analyse and interpret it, providing evidence for their responses.
• Wonder: They reflect on their answers and raise questions that go beyond their interpretations.

 

2. Think-Puzzle-Explore: Activating prior knowledge and fostering inquiry

• Think: Students share what they know about the topic.
• Puzzle: They pose questions about what they wonder or don’t understand.
• Explore: They explore those puzzles further by determining how to investigate their questions and identifying sources or research methods.

 

 3. Chalk Talk: Collaboratively building understanding

• Set up: Write your prompt (a thought-provoking question, key ideas related to the topic being explored, or a significant quote from a text) on a large sheet of chart paper at different stations.
• Silent discussion: Students think about their reactions to the prompt and record their ideas and questions.
• Reflection: They review contributions, looking for emerging patterns or insights.

 

4. Compass Points (EWNS): Exploring multiple perspectives

Present a dilemma or dissenting point of view to students on the whiteboard. They use sticky notes to respond under these categories:

• Excitements: Students identify things that excite them about the proposal.
• Worries: They write things that they find worrisome as their starting point.
• Needs: They identify what they need to know more about to go forward.
• Stance: They indicate their current stance on the idea or proposition, identify the next steps for action, or make suggestions for enhancing the situation.

 

5. The CSI (Color, Symbol, Image): Thinking metaphorically

After reading a passage from a book, listening to a speaker, or viewing a video, students select:

• A colour that represents the piece of content being explored.
• A symbol that captures the core idea.
• An image that visually represents the idea.
• Students then explain and justify their choices in writing.

 

6. The 4C’s: Structuring text’s analysis

After reading the text, students apply the 4Cs framework:

• Connections: They draw connections between the text and their own life or learning.
• Challenge: They read from the text and then explain what questions came into their minds as they read those ideas.
• Concepts: They briefly review the text and note the key concepts, themes, or ideas.
• Changes: They reflect on the overall text and think about its implications.

 

7. Claim-Support-Question: Evaluating arguments

• Claim: Introduce a claim to the class—a conjecture, speculation, generalization, assertion, statement of fact, theory, or hypothesis.
• Support: Students identify and provide evidence for or against the claim.
• Question: Students think beyond the support already offered for the claims and raise questions about them to truly examine their credibility.

 

To conclude, in today’s information-driven world, analytical skills aren’t just important—they’re essential. These skills empower students to break down complex ideas, solve problems, and make informed decisions. By integrating the activities shared in this post into your teaching, you’ll not only strengthen your students’ analytical abilities but also prepare them for success beyond the classroom.

References

Bughin, J., Hazan, E., Lund, S., Dahlstrom, P., Wiesinger, A., & Subramaniam, A. (2018). Skill Shift: Automation and the Future of the Workforce. McKinsey Global Institute.

Demir, E. (2022). An examination of high school students’ critical thinking dispositions and analytical thinking skills. Journal of Pedagogical Research, 6(4), 190-200. https://doi.org/10.33902/JPR.202217357

Ritchhart.R. Church.M., & Morrison,K. (2011). Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners. USA: Jossey-Bass.