means to end in a problematic situation.
Many of the processes of mental activity which have been given other
names may involve this process. Habit formation--when the learner
analyzes his progress or failure, when he tries to find a short cut, or
when he seeks for an incentive to insure greater improvement--may serve
as a situation calling for thinking. The process of apperceiving or of
assimilation may involve it. Studying and trying to remember may involve
it. Constructive imagination often calls for it. Reasoning, always
requires it. In the older psychology reasoning and thinking were often
used as synonyms, but more recently it has been accepted by most
psychologists that reasoning is simply one type of thinking, the most
advanced type, and the most demanding type, but not the only one.
Thinking may go on (as in the other processes just mentioned) without
reasoning, but all reasoning must involve thinking. It is this lack of
differentiation between reasoning and thinking, the attempt to make of
all thinking, reasoning, that has limited teachers in their attempts to
develop thinking upon the part of their pupils.

The essentials of the thinking process are three: (1) a state of doubt
or uncertainty, resulting in suspended judgment; (2) an organization and
control of mental states in view of an end to be attained; (3) a
critical attitude involving selection and rejection of suggestions
offered. The recognition of some lack of adjustment, the feeling of need
for something one hasn't, is the only stimulus toward thinking. This
problematic situation, resulting in suspended judgment, caused by the
inadequacy of present power or knowledge, may arise in connection with
any situation. It is unfortunate that the terms "problematic situation"
and "feeling of inadequacy" have been discussed almost entirely in
connection with situations when the result has some pragmatic value.
There is no question but what the situation arousing thinking must be a
live one and a real one, but it need not be one the answer to which will
be useful. It is true that with the majority of people, both children
and adults, a problem of this type will be more often effective in
arousing the thinking process than a problem of a more abstract nature,
but it is not always so, nor necessarily so. Most children sometimes,
and some children most of the time, enjoy thinking simply for the sake
of the activity. They do not need the concrete, pragmatic
situati