Pedagogical potential of competence tasks as a means of developing critical thinking of future economists

Purpose. The purpose of the article is to present the means of training future economists for analytical professional activity, which contributes to the development of critical thinking of specialists in economic specialties. Results. The article is devoted to one of the urgent problems of training future bachelors in economics: developing critical thinking in the professional training of economists. We prove that competency-based tasks of economic content are an essential means of developing the critical thinking of future economics specialists. The main competence tasks with economic content include problems with labor productivity, cost, elasticity, rent, interest, compound interest, profitability, market equilibrium, profit, income taxes, credit, optimal decision-making, etc. The competence tasks bind economic concepts with their quantitative and qualitative characteristics and connections. These tasks reflect real economic situations, and solving them contributes to the familiarisation of students with economic concepts and cause-and-effect relationships between them (at the level of representation, assimilation, or consolidation), mathematical models in the economy, development of skills to build and research mathematical models of economic situations, apply mathematical methods and regularities in specific production processes. Scientific novelty. The theory and practice of training economists, which uses competence tasks of economic content as a leading means of developing their critical thinking, has gained further development. The results of the survey of teachers and students confirmed the feasibility of the proposed approach to the use of competence tasks with economic content for the development of critical thinking of future economists. Practical value. Solving competence tasks contributes to developing students’ critical thinking, as it illustrates the process of applying knowledge, skills, and abilities to solving any problems that arise in practice (formalisation, solving a problem within a built model, interpretation). It is advisable to offer such tasks in studying specialised economic disciplines and the first courses in studying “Higher Mathematics”.