Mexican college students’ perspectives on teaching practice and critical thinking development

Abstract

Developing Critical Thinking Skills (CTS) has been a primary educational goal in developed countries for several decades. However, even though Mexico recently embraced this educational trend in higher education, there is uncertainty about CTS development occurring under current conditions. Despite the abundance of quantitative studies examining the impact of higher education on the development of CTS, there is a need to understand the conditions that support these improvements. This qualitative study sought to address this gap by exploring one of the critical factors influencing CTS development, namely, teaching practice, from the students’ perspective. We used inductive methods to analyze data from 42 students (28 females and 14 males (M age = 21.7 years, SD = 2.4) purposefully sampled from Mexican public universities. We collected the data through in-depth interviews. The findings of inductive analysis revealed that students perceived learning experiences as crucial for CTS development. More specifically, students believed that the student-centered approach remained essential for CTS development, whereas the teacher-centered approach was partly perceived as an obstacle to such development. These results indicate that it is imperative for educational institutions in Mexico to re-evaluate and enhance their pedagogical approaches in a timely manner to foster the development of critical thinkers.