What is critical thinking? U-Study Library defines the critical thinker as "rational and consistent, strives to learn how to think, holistic/webbed, original/insightful, uses multiple frames of reference." (U-Study Library website). This tells me that critical thinking takes in data and uses it to make an informed decision.
Decision-making is the process of using assembled data to make a final decision. This involves evaluating the data from all standpoints and selecting a choice that would best resolve a given issue. Decision-making uses critical thinking to examine and evaluate a problem and various reasons for each possible resolution.
Brown and Keeley tell us that "listening and reading critically - that is, reacting with systematic evaluation to what you have heard and read - requires a set of skills and attitudes. These skills and attitudes are built around a series of critical questions". (Brown and Keeley, p. 2) Their work lists eleven (11) questions that they consider to be the "right" questions to ask when employing their definition of critical thinking. (Brown and Keeley, p. 12) .
Brown and Keeley also list two (2) alternative thinking styles: "The Sponge and Panning For Gold" (Brown and Keeley, p. 3) The sponge style involves absorption of data, taking in all of the information you can acquire about a subject, argument, or discussion prior to forming an opinion or making a decision. This style does not involve interaction with the data, only assimilation of it. .
The Panning For Gold method enables a thinking person to sort through the data that was gathered and selecting the most important, factual data in order to support a final decision. It may not support the side of the argument that you originally believed was the "right answer". During the critical analysis of the issue and supporting reasons for both sides, the evidence uncovered can lead to a change in the final decision.