Analysis of Critical Thinking in Higher Education Institutes in Pakistan

Authors: Mohammad Ali Bait, Muhammad Uzair Asif

In the current era due to the availability of digital facility, the educators are deviated more towards online sources. University teachers are highly tilted towards online assessments and activities by using the software provided by the book sellers. This trajectory has eliminated the power of critical thinking among the faculty of higher education institutes. The priorities of the students and academicians are different and that are even different from the priorities of the top management of the universities. The reviewed literature has shown a significant failure of critical thinking and limit the capacity to think critically to certain boundaries or contexts. Therefore, this qualitative study is focused towards understanding the current state of critical thinking as per the academicians and the students in the developing countries like Pakistan. For the said purpose qualitative study has been conducted in the universities that are operating in Islamabad Pakistan and the data has been collected though the open-ended questionnaires containing six questions for faculty and four questions for the students. Voluntary participation was done, and the respondents were kept anonymous. The findings revealed that the perspective of the students and the faculty is slightly different however the understanding of both regarding critical thinking is somewhat similar. The students are more decimated towards outcomes whereas, faculty is more deviated towards teaching methodology. The findings are significant especially for the academicians in understanding that students’ interest can be gained by developing assessments that are related to critical thinking. The findings are also important for the top management as well as the policy makers to develop policies for the education that should be supportive of critical thinking..