The COVID-19 pandemic has led to booming popularity of distance education, raising the question of ensuring critical thinking in students as one of the key competences. The present study aims to investigate how learning a Chinese language remotely affects the development of critical thinking in international students. The study took place in the Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China, and involved comparing the levels of critical thinking in 233 international students learning Chinese remotely and 214 international students engaged in other areas and learning in their native language while training critical thinking, also remotely. The critical thinking assessment was carried out twice, at the beginning and at the end of the study, using the validated HEIghten® Critical Thinking Assessment suite in the native language of the respondents. The results of the study show that learning a Chinese language can facilitate the development of critical thinking in international students and that the low level of critical thinking among Chinese speakers is a myth. Future studies should focus more on exploring the psychophysiological predictors of critical thinking and developing valid psychodiagnostic techniques with regard to racial and ethnic characteristics of the psychophysiological mechanisms of cognition. In addition, the learning programs and training curricula aimed at critical thinking development must take into account the psychophysiology of learning.
Critical Thinking Cultivation in Chinese Learning Classes for International Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic