2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This work-in-progress paper presents the addition of a critical thinking activity into two engineering courses at Texas A&M University-Kingsville (TAMUK). Instructional literature exists on the application of critical thinking concepts in undergraduate engineering courses, however the literature is limited on critical thinking incorporated with active learning in engineering courses. This may be related to instructors finding it challenging to explain what critical thinking is, and it being harder to actually teach it in engineering courses [1]. A renewed interest in critical thinking has emerged from the ABET 2000 criteria [2]. Additionally, critical thinking skills have benefited the instructor in the analysis of problems and solution development in 25 years of environmental engineering consulting experience. Thus, critical thinking is a very important, though infrequently taught, aspect of engineering problem solving, and is important to the development of successful engineering careers [1,2,3,4]. A definition of critical thinking shared with students in this work was “critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to making decisions” [modified from 1]. The objective of the redesign of two chemical engineering courses at TAMUK was to integrate critical thinking into courses for both freshman and senior students. The research question to be addressed was "Can integration of critical thinking in a freshman or senior engineering class improve student’s readiness and confidence in addressing complex engineering problems they will face with future industry employers?”
The instructional unit on critical thinking was developed and implemented in two Fall 2024 courses simultaneously, a first semester senior design capstone course and a freshman introduction to engineering course, both in the TAMUK Wayne H. King Department of Chemical and Natural Gas Engineering. The unit included three elements, namely (1) a lecture to introduce critical thinking and why it is important to advanced problem solving and success in an engineering career; (2) an in-class hands-on critical thinking activity or visual exercise; and (3) a group engineering project in which the use of critical thinking skills was encouraged. The first and second elements incorporated the higher-level aspects of Bloom’s Taxonomy, namely evaluation, analysis, and synthesis, which are important elements of engineering design. Five different in-class hands-on (physical item provided in class) activities incorporated basic math or science principles with immediate observation, measurement, and analysis elements. These hands-on activities were (a) calculating the speed of the tip of a wind turbine blade; (b) analyzing a rain gauge which measures cumulative precipitation with inch markings that are spaced greater than one inch apart; (c) identifying the source of condensation on a glass of ice water; (d) estimating the difference in gas versus liquid mass densities as evident from a gas-evolving reaction; and (e) estimating the amount of pore volume present in a jar of sand or rocks. The five different activities were utilized for class sizes of 15 to 30 students. This approach represents an integration of the concept throughout different aspects of the course, rather than only a single lecture on critical thinking, which is consistent with other’s implementation of critical thinking in engineering curricula [2]. The outcomes from the addition of this unit in both courses is determined by responses to pre-implementation and post-implementation survey results. A survey consisting of five statements about critical thinking in relation to engineering problem solving with five-point Likert-scale responses was developed and submitted for the TAMUK Institutional Review Board (IRB), which was granted approval by exemption. The paper describes the results of the addition of this unit to these two courses, as gauged by the survey and also by student comments in course instructor evaluations. Input from other instructors who have incorporated critical thinking in their classroom is sought in this work-in-progress paper.