A Survey on Critical Thinking Perception among Engineering Education Students

Abstract

This paper discuss about the critical thinking which is known as a key skill and a primary goal of engineering education. Existing trends in technology and work place need engineers equipped with critical thinking skills such as solving problems, making decisions and understanding of technical and engineering skills for successful future like Artificial intelligence. Though, surprisingly there is little research on critical thinking in engineering education. This paper describes quantitative survey carried out on engineering students for identifying students’ perception regarding critical thinking skills for problem solving and decision making. Validity and reliability were proved through pilot study and experts of the field. One hundred twenty undergrad engineering students participated from civil, electrical and mechanical engineering departments. The results illustrated that engineering students have high perception on critical thinking skills in all four sub-dimensions analysis, evaluation, induction and deduction.