Critical thinking skills of Chinese students: a meta-analysis of individual studies between 2002 and 2025

Critical thinking is widely recognized as an essential competency for 21st-century higher education and the cultivation of innovative talent. However, previous studies have yielded contradictory conclusions, leaving two key questions remain unknown: What is the overall level of critical thinking skills among Chinese students, and what accounts for the inconsistencies in prior findings? To address these questions, this meta-analysis synthesized 79 primary studies published between 2002 and 2025 that assessed Chinese students' critical thinking skills using the California Critical Thinking Skills Test or its Chinese version, with a total sample size of 8,860 participants. The results revealed that the overall score for critical thinking skills among Chinese students was 0.426, with scores on the analysis, evaluation, and inference dimensions ranging from 0.374 to 0.461, all falling below the scale midpoint. Academic discipline demonstrated a significant moderating effect, with scores ranked from highest to lowest as follows: Medicine, Liberal Arts, Education, Engineering, and Science. This variation may partly reflect differences in discipline-specific curriculum design, learning tasks, opportunities for classroom interaction, and exposure to problem-based learning. Publication type also showed a significant moderating effect, with general journals reporting the highest effect sizes and dissertations the lowest. In contrast, the moderating effects of grade level and institution type were not significant. Some issues related with the theoretical, educational implications, and future study were also discussed.