Critical Thinking and Its Relationship with Historical Empathy among Female Postgraduate Students in the Department of History – A Field Study – College of Education for Women – University of Tikrit"

This research aims to investigate the nature of the relationship between critical thinking and historical empathy among female postgraduate students in the Department of History. The study is grounded in a field-based research design that adopts a descriptive correlational approach and relies on scientifically validated and standardized measurement tools to assess the level of both variables. The research provides a conceptual clarification of critical thinking as a higher-order cognitive capacity that involves analytical reasoning, logical connections between historical events, evaluation of evidence, and the ability to anticipate outcomes within their historical contexts. In contrast, historical empathy is conceptualized as the student’s ability to understand past events and historical actors from within their original social, cultural, and intellectual frameworks, without imposing present-day values or judgments. The results of the study indicate the existence of a statistically significant positive correlation between critical thinking and the level of historical empathy among the participants. This finding underscores the crucial role of developing higher-order thinking skills in promoting a deeper, more balanced, and more objective understanding of historical content. Accordingly, the study recommends the incorporation of structured training programs aimed at enhancing critical thinking skills within postgraduate history curricula, as such programs can effectively contribute to strengthening historical empathy and advancing scholarly historical analysis.