Abstract This bibliometric study examines how design thinking has been discussed and applied within research on critical thinking in education. The study was motivated by the limited number of reviews that explicitly explore this connection. Through a PRISMA-guided selection process, 133 Scopus-indexed publications from 2015 to 2024 were identified. These documents were analysed using Bibliometrix, with visualisations generated through Biblioshiny and VOSviewer to map publication trends, thematic structures, collaboration networks, and keyword relationships. The findings indicate a steady rise in research activity after 2018, with dominant themes relating to design thinking, critical thinking, project-based learning, and sustainability-oriented approaches. The thematic patterns show that design thinking is increasingly positioned as a process-oriented and learner-centred pedagogical approach within discussions of critical thinking in education. Collaboration mapping highlights strong contributions from the United States and China, along with growing participation from emerging research regions. This study offers a long-term overview of how design thinking appears in critical thinking research, an area that remains underrepresented in previous reviews. The findings provide theoretical insights into design thinking as an iterative framework that supports inquiry and reflection, along with practical implications for curriculum development, instructional design, and teacher professional learning. However, reliance on Scopus and English-language publications, together with the relatively small dataset, limits the generalisability of the results. Future research should integrate multiple databases and qualitative approaches to deepen contextual and pedagogical understanding.
Nurmasyitah et al. (Mon,) studied this question.
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