DEVELOPMENT OF СRITICAL THINKING IN HIGHER EDUCATION: A SUBJECT FIELD REVIEW

21st century people have to deal with unknown, unpredictable, and/or uncontrollable problems, and encounter new professions that previously did not exist. As a higher-order cognitive ability, critical thinking represents a pinnacle of sophisticated thinking. Critical thinking is important for individuals to make decisions in their career, personal life and public life. To explore this area, a qualitative systematic literature review was conducted in the ScienceDirect electronic database. A total of 1654 papers were identified and 44 articles selected and included in the review. The thematic synthesis of the papers resulted in seven analytical themes being identified: the process and methods of developing a critical mind; teachers' attitudes towards teaching critical thinking; innovative teaching methods and the effectiveness of such methods like critical thinking development in students; the research of сritical thinking in specific subject disciplines; the impact of cultural differences on the effectiveness of various pedagogical methods. In this review, we compared the results of the pre-2015 articles with the results of the post-2015 articles. We observed that over the past 7 years, this problem has increasingly gained in relevance and more solutions to this problem are emerging. Based on the fact that methods are just beginning to be introduced in higher education institutions, and not all methods show good results, it is expected that the following research can improve the quality of critical thinking development not only for students, but also for schoolchildren and adults