Impact of Problem-Based Learning on Encouraging Critical Thinking of Students in Higher Education

Critical thinking is one of the key 21st century skills. It is considered to be one of the fundamental learning outcomes, which makes it a topic of many discussions on the concept of quality in higher education. Consequently, many ways have been developed to encourage the development of critical thinking and problem-based learning is one of them. In this paper we start from terminological definitions of the concepts related to the problem-solving learning and critical thinking in order to shed more light on their correlation in the context of learning in higher education. The authors of the paper show the impact of the problem-solving learning on encouraging students’ critical thinking by analyzing the results of theoretical and empirical research of the above-mentioned problem area. Apart from advantages, we point out the disadvantages in terms of additional research in the context of higher education, as well as conceptual consideration of the critical thinking concept.