Critical thinking skills are essential competencies in higher education, as they support effective problem-solving, decision-making, and self-directed learning. Despite their recognized importance, comprehensive bibliometric analyses examining the development of critical thinking research in higher education over the past decade remain limited. This study aims to map research trends, identify influential sources, and examine global contributions to critical thinking in higher education from 2015 to 2025. A bibliometric approach was applied using 336 Scopus-indexed journal articles, analyzed through Bibliometrix and VOSviewer. The findings reveal a significant increase in publication output, particularly after 2020, indicating growing scholarly attention to this field. “Thinking Skills and Creativity” emerges as the most influential journal, E. T. Pascarella as the most productive author, and the United States as the leading country in both publication volume and citation impact. Highly cited works highlight the increasing integration of digital literacy and artificial intelligence in developing critical thinking. These findings suggest that future research and educational policies should prioritize the explicit integration of critical thinking within curricula, particularly in response to digital transformation and the demand for global competencies.
Khasanah et al. (Sat,) studied this question.