Enhancing student’s critical thinking skills in education through generative AI

Abstract

Education is one of the domains that suffered significant challanges throughout the years, having to adapt once more to respond to the requirements brought by the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence. This paper explores how critical thinking amongst students can be nourished through the usage of generative AI in educational software. It analyzes how generative AI can be properly implemented in tools used in teaching and learning, focusing on ways that guarantee the proper usage of this type of technology. A systematic literature review approach was used confirming that the selected studies met the specific criteria set in this paper. The criteria covers different components such as: publication date of the article (between 2020 and 2025), a specific set of keywords, methods that were used, language of the paper etc. A set of research questions was developed in order to highlight the important elements that can make the difference between the nourishment or the inhibition of the student’s critical thinking. This literature review summarizes and explains the proper techniques that can be used to ensure that generative AI is used as a tool that supports thinking processes and not as a substitute for them. Through this approach, this paper can be seen as a starting point in the direction of studying the positive aspects of incorporating AI in education, listing new perspectives for future research in this direction. This analysis compares the positive and negative aspects of the usage of large language models in education, aiming to add value to current educational research by addressing the uncertainty of whether to or not to integrate AI in educational processes.