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10 Best Critical Thinking Courses for Beginners

We compared 10 Critical Thinking courses currently listed on Coursera, edX and Udemy, priced from $49.00 to $209.00. 5 come from a named university or institution, including Duke University, Harvard University and Imperial College London. They are ordered by our CourseAsk score, which is built from how thoroughly each course describes what it teaches, whether it comes from a named institution, and how it compares on price — not from star ratings, which our course data does not include.

Courses compared
10
Price range
$49.00 – $209.00
Providers
Coursera, edX, Udemy
Last updated
18 Sep 2026
How these 10 courses were chosen

Every course below is a real, currently listed course from Coursera, edX, Udemy, matched to "critical thinking" by our catalog and ordered by our CourseAsk score. Courses whose own title names the topic rank above those only tagged with it.

The grade on each entry scores how much the provider publishes about the course before you pay — the length and detail of the description, whether it lists learning outcomes and objectives — and whether a named university or institution stands behind it. A is fully documented and institution-backed; E is little more than a title and a price. Courses with almost nothing published are left ungraded rather than marked down, because an unknown course and a poor one are not the same thing.

There are no star ratings on this page — the course feeds we license do not include them, and we would rather leave a column out than fill it with a number we cannot stand behind. What we do have is price: these range from $49.00 to $209.00, as listed by the provider when we last updated the page.

  1. 1
    Coursera MOOC / Non-credit Grade A Lowest price here University-backed

    Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking

    Offered by Duke University

    By taking Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking you will improve your ability to identify, analyze, and evaluate arguments by other people (including politicians, used car salesmen, and teachers) and also to constr...

    $49.00
    listed price
  2. 2
    edX MOOC / Non-credit University-backed

    Structure and Function of Argument: Introduction to Critical Thinking

    Offered by Harvard University

    Explore the underlying structures of everyday arguments and develop the tools to communicate effectively.

    $209.00
    listed price
  3. 3
    edX MOOC / Non-credit

    Critical Thinking: Fundamentals of Good Reasoning

    Offered by IsraelX

    Learn the fundamentals of good reasoning, including how to recognize, formulate, evaluate, and construct arguments.

    $189.00
    listed price
  4. 4
    Coursera MOOC / Non-credit Grade A University-backed

    Introduction to Statistics & Data Analysis in Public Health

    Offered by Imperial College London

    Welcome to Introduction to Statistics & Data Analysis in Public Health! This course will teach you the core building blocks of statistical analysis - types of variables, common distributions, hypothesis testing - but, mo...

    $49.00
    listed price
  5. 5
    Coursera MOOC / Non-credit Grade A University-backed

    Philosophy and the Sciences: Introduction to the Philosophy of Cognitive Sciences

    Offered by The University of Edinburgh

    Course Description What is our role in the universe as human agents capable of knowledge? What makes us intelligent cognitive agents seemingly endowed with consciousness? This is the second part of the course 'Philosophy...

    $49.00
    listed price
  6. 6
    Udemy MOOC / Non-credit Grade B

    Rubik’s Cube for Beginners - Made Simple

    Welcome to the "Rubik's Cube for Beginners - Made Simple" Course!Are you ready to unlock the secrets of the Rubik's Cube and want to become a puzzle-solving pro?Course Overview:Learn to solve a Rubik’s Cube with easy-to-...

    $109.99
    listed price
  7. 7
    edX MOOC / Non-credit Grade C University-backed

    Introduction to Transferable Skills

    Offered by The University of Wisconsin-Madison

    The Introduction to Transferable Skills course is for faculty and other postsecondary instructors who want to improve how their students are learning four “21st century skills”, communication, teamwork, critical thinking...

    $125.00
    listed price
  8. 8
    edX MOOC / Non-credit Grade C

    Introduction to Social Science Experiments

    Offered by ISSE

    This course offers an accessible introduction to social science experiments. The course is designed for students with a limited background in statistics or social science. Although such background is helpful, the lecture...

    $150.00
    listed price
  9. 9
    edX MOOC / Non-credit Grade C

    Teaching with Physical Computing: Introduction to Project-Based Learning

    Offered by Arm Education

    This course introduces the fundamental concepts underpinning Project-Based Learning, and how you can apply it with programmable devices to bring STEM & Computing to life in the classroom.

    $49.00
    listed price
  10. 10
    Udemy Certificate Grade C

    Business Analyst Career Blueprint: From Beginner to Hired

    Are you ready to embark on a fulfilling career as a Business Analyst but don’t know where to start? This comprehensive course is designed to take you from a complete beginner to a confident professional, ready to ace you...

    $94.99
    listed price

Best Critical Thinking Courses for Beginners compared

Prices shown are the provider's listed price when we last updated this page. Confirm on their site before enrolling.

What the prices here tell you

The 10 priced courses on this page run from $49.00 to $209.00, with the middle of the range around $109.99 — a spread of $160.00. That is a wide gap for one subject. A higher price on this page usually reflects who is behind the course rather than how much material it contains, so it is worth opening two or three at different price points and comparing their syllabus before deciding.

Who is behind these courses

These courses come from Coursera, edX and Udemy. The platforms differ in how they sell: some charge once per course, others expect a subscription, and the listed price is not always what you pay at checkout after a promotion. 5 of these are produced by a named university or institution, including Duke University, Harvard University and Imperial College London — which usually means a fixed syllabus and a recognised certificate, rather than an individual instructor’s own course.

Before you enrol

Open the provider’s own page and check three things this comparison cannot tell you: when the course was last updated, what the syllabus actually covers in its later sections, and what recent learners say. Prices shown here are the provider’s listed price when we last rebuilt this page on 18 September 2026 — they change often, and a promotion can move them substantially. We earn a commission if you enrol through our links, which costs you nothing and never affects the order courses appear in.

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