Critical thinking performance patterns among Australian and Chinese higher education students: a latent profile analysis

Abstract

This study addresses a tension in the critical thinking (CT) literature. Recent large-scale empirical evidence suggests significant CT gains in higher education across world regions, yet stakeholders such as employers often perceive CT as underdeveloped in graduates, and emerging empirical evidence challenges prevailing assumptions that Eastern students are weaker critical thinkers than their Western peers. We hypothesised that this tension arises from the use of narrow, often implicit CT constructs that capture only part of a broader, multidimensional competence. Adopting a model of CT that includes both cognitive skills and epistemic beliefs, we conducted latent profile analysis on data from higher education students in Australia (N = 233) and China (N = 247). The resulting performance profiles show that students’ CT cannot be adequately described along a single dimension, and that focusing on only one aspect of CT can generate partial or misleading conclusions about CT development across contexts. The study illustrates how explicit use of a multidimensional CT construct can help reconcile conflicting accounts in the literature and offers conceptual and practical guidance for CT theory, assessment, and pedagogy, while underscoring the need for future research with larger and more representative samples.