Critical thinking and academic achievement reinforce each other over time, study finds

A new study published in Learning and Individual Differences has found that critical thinking skills and academic achievement influence each other in a bidirectional way during the upper elementary school years. This connection remained stable even after accounting for students’ general cognitive ability. The findings support the idea that teaching students to think critically and building their knowledge base can work hand in hand to support long-term academic development.

The study was motivated by a long-standing question in educational research: Does learning more help students become better thinkers, or does thinking more critically help them learn more? Most past research looked at this relationship using one-time data, which made it difficult to know how critical thinking and academic performance influence each other over time.

The researchers, based at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China, wanted to examine this relationship more thoroughly by following the same students across several years. They were particularly interested in understanding how each factor predicts changes in the other and whether these links still exist when taking students’ general intelligence into account.

To answer these questions, the researchers tracked a group of 160 fourth-grade students from a public school in central China over three years, assessing them annually from fourth through sixth grade. All students were native Mandarin speakers without known developmental delays, and most had parents who completed high school or higher education. The researchers used a range of tools to measure students’ academic achievement, critical thinking skills, and general cognitive ability.

Academic achievement was assessed using final semester exam scores in Chinese and mathematics, which are considered core subjects in Chinese elementary education. These exams were standardized across schools in the same district, ensuring consistency and reliability. To measure critical thinking, students completed a Chinese version of the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X, which included 67 multiple-choice questions covering areas such as inductive and deductive reasoning, evaluating information sources, and identifying assumptions. The test used a story-based, engaging format in which students imagined themselves exploring a distant planet, helping to maintain attention and motivation.

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General cognitive ability was measured using both traditional and computerized tests. These included two paper-based intelligence tests—the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices and the Horn Intelligence Test—as well as three computerized tasks assessing different aspects of working memory. The visual-spatial memory task, the antisaccade task, and the dot-triangle task measured students’ ability to retain and manipulate information, control impulses, and shift between tasks.

To analyze the data, the researchers used a statistical technique called a random intercept cross-lagged panel model. This method allowed them to separate stable differences between individuals from changes that occurred within individuals over time. They could then examine whether fluctuations in critical thinking at one point in time predicted changes in academic achievement at a later time, and vice versa. Importantly, they also controlled for students’ age, gender, and general cognitive ability to make sure the relationships they observed weren’t just due to students being generally smarter or older.

The results showed that students who had higher academic achievement than expected for their own average performance also tended to show higher-than-expected growth in critical thinking skills at the next measurement point. The reverse was also true—students who scored higher than expected in critical thinking also tended to improve in their academic achievement over time. These patterns held even after controlling for general cognitive ability, suggesting that the two factors genuinely support each other in a meaningful way.

On average, students’ critical thinking skills increased over the three years, with the biggest gains seen between the fourth and fifth grades. Academic achievement was more stable, in part because the content being assessed changed with each grade level, making direct comparisons over time more difficult. Nevertheless, the consistent pattern of reciprocal influence between the two domains paints a picture of a developmental process where gains in one area help fuel growth in the other.

One key takeaway from the study is that the link between academic achievement and critical thinking is not just due to students being generally more intelligent. While general cognitive ability was linked to both academic performance and critical thinking—especially early in the study—it did not account for the dynamic relationship between them over time. This suggests that critical thinking plays a distinct role in learning, above and beyond general intellectual capacity.

The study adds weight to the idea that critical thinking is not just a generic skill that students either have or don’t have. Instead, it develops over time through engagement with specific academic content. The findings support the view that critical thinking draws on domain-specific knowledge and is strengthened through its use in real academic tasks. At the same time, critical thinking enhances learning by helping students analyze, evaluate, and reflect on what they are learning, leading to deeper understanding and more flexible application of knowledge.

This has important implications for how schools design curricula and teaching strategies. Traditionally, many education systems—especially in China—have focused heavily on knowledge transmission. But this research suggests that teaching students how to think critically can support their learning just as much as, if not more than, simply providing more content. Integrating critical thinking instruction into regular classroom activities and content areas could provide students with tools to better understand and apply what they learn, leading to a more productive cycle of academic growth.

While the study provides valuable insights, the authors acknowledge several limitations. The sample size was relatively small, with just 160 students, which may limit the generalizability of the results. Although the study followed students for three years, it only covered a specific developmental period (grades four to six), so it is unclear whether the findings would apply to younger children or adolescents. Additionally, the study relied on a single test to measure critical thinking, which may not capture all the different forms this ability can take. Finally, since the study was observational, it cannot prove that critical thinking directly causes better academic outcomes, even though the timing of changes suggests a strong relationship.

The authors suggest that future research could use larger and more diverse samples, include students across a wider age range, and employ experimental designs to more directly test the effects of critical thinking instruction. Despite these limitations, the findings contribute to a growing body of research showing that critical thinking and academic achievement are deeply intertwined.

The study, “The bidirectional relationship between critical thinking and academic achievement is independent of general cognitive ability: A three-year longitudinal study on elementary school children,” was authored by Xiaojing Lv, Jiabi Zhou, and Xuezhu Ren.