Critical thinking is considered crucial for participation in the global ‘knowledge economy’, as it enables the adaptation of technology to local needs and allows
individuals to make determinations about the quality and reliability of the wide range of evidence now available online. As a result, critical thinking is frequently
cited as one of the most important outcomes of a contemporary university education, and yet employers around the world, including across sub-Saharan Africa, often decry a marked lack of critical thinking skills in university graduates. These concerns have prompted a growing recognition that pedagogical reform is an urgent priority. However, in the African context, this focus on the need to reform teaching practice is supported by limited contextually-specific empirical evidence.
The Pedagogies for Critical Thinking (PCT) project, funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), has attempted to fill this gap by investigating these issues in 14 universities in Botswana, Ghana and Kenya, eight of which are employing some
‘innovation’ in their pedagogical approach. More specifically, the study aimed to: (1) expand our empirical knowledge of how different pedagogies affect the development of critical thinking in African university contexts, and (2) explore how African universities approach and manage complicated processes of pedagogical change. The project followed a mixed methods approach, comprising a longitudinal study of student ‘gains’ in critical thinking over a two-year period and a qualitative
investigation of the teaching and learning environment within the participating universities.1 This research brief provides a summary of the main findings from the study.

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