DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2019.1586325

Summary
The paper aims to discuss the literature related to teaching approaches, resources, assessment strategies, and methods used to develop critical thinking in engineering education. Critical thinking is highly valued by the employers as it is strongly related to solving real-life problems. Firstly, the relationship between problem solving and critical thinking, usual critical thinking education practices, and other pedagogical practices such as problem-based and project-based learning are discussed. Secondly, the research methodology on the collection of the related articles and their analysis is defined. Finally, the review results are presented. The results show that critical thinking is usually promoted by incorporating real-life cases or problems in the educational process. This also enables students to better understand the complexity of practical engineering solutions. The authors state that the strategies to measure the development of critical thinking are frequently based on the collected feedback by the means of interviews or surveys. Thus, the employers’ and educators’ understanding of critical thinking differs and needs to be addressed in the future to prepare the skills needed in the practical engineering field.

Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
Critical thinking is an important part of solving real-life engineering problems which require social skills as much as technical. The authors discuss types of teaching strategies used to develop critical thinking and state that most of teachers feel that real-life engineering problems allow student to better understand the role of a professional engineer in practice. The authors also analyze the articles under consideration by the means of critical thinking assessment and conclude that assessment is not always transparent.

Point of Strength
The authors summarize research on developing critical thinking in engineering education. Although authors state that it is difficult to identify the most effective strategy to teach critical thinking, they also provide comments on various approaches.