Critical Thinking at Universities in BIH: Are They on the Right Track?

Abstract

The disruptive nature of the global economy causes continuous and dynamic changes in the labor market by creating new jobs and transforming existing ones. Today’s companies need highly educated employees who are capable of thinking critically, having creative ideas and solutions, and who are communicative and team players. Higher education institutions (HEIS) are under considerable pressure to educate their students for the dynamic labor market and for jobs that do not even exist yet. There are high expectations from universities in fostering critical thinking among their students. The authors were interested in finding if the public HEIS in BIH fostering critical thinking of their students. The goals of the research were to discover how BIH students understand critical thinking and how they evaluate their universities regarding the promotion and practice of critical thinking. The authors developed a questionnaire and conducted an online survey among students at public universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The findings show that the implementation of critical thinking at BIH universities is not neglected, but it is not present to the necessary extent. There is a lot of room for improvement, particularly in the teaching process, through using new learning methods and extensive support of information technology.

Keywords

• critical thinking
• higher education institutions
• students