A European review on Critical Thinking educational practices in Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

Within the scope of CRITHINKEDU project, this report is directed to university teachers, pedagogical support teams and institutional leaders, providing an overall understanding on how European Higher Education Institutions (EHEI) foster Critical Thinking (CT), taking into account both the current educational intervention studies reported in the literature and teachers’ educational practices. Adopting a mixed method research design, 46 papers from the literature were reviewed and 53 interviews with university teachers from 9 European countries were carried out. The analysis comprised both studies and teachers’ interviews from 4 different professional fields, namely Biomedical Sciences, STEM (Sciences, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), Social Sciences and the Humanities. The key findings are in line with previous reviews (Abrami et al., 2008; Behar-Horenstein & Niu, 2011; Tiruneh, Verburgh & Elen, 2014; Abrami et al., 2015): - Research on CT Education is a growing field within the European Higher Education (EHE) landscape. - CT dispositions are undervalued by EHE teachers - CT instruction within subject-matter courses is the most used approach by EHE teachers - Active Learning methodologies, Teachers’ training and Students’ support are fundamental for CT development. - EHE teachers have difficulties to assess their students’ CT development.