A Pedagogical-Interindividual Model of Situated Critical Thinking in Higher Education

Critical thinking is an essential competency in higher education, particularly in contexts characterized by complexity, uncertainty, information overload, and technological transformation. However, various models explain critical thinking primarily from cognitive perspectives, thereby limiting understanding of the conditions that foster its activation, regulation, and advancement in authentic educational settings. This article proposes a pedagogical-interindividual model of situated critical thinking in higher education, developed through a conceptual review of theoretical and empirical literature regarding critical thinking, metacognition, motivation, social interaction, language, and instructional mediation. The model is organized as a relational and functional architecture rather than as a linear sequence and distinguishes interconnected components according to their respective functions: teacher instructional mediation as an instructional-contextual condition; argumentative socio-linguistic interaction as an interindividual mechanism; motivation and metacognition as individual factors of activation and regulation; critical cognitive processes as the operational core; situated critical thinking as performance; and evidence-based decision-making as an educational outcome. The model hypothesizes that situated critical thinking may emerge from direct and indirect relationships among students’ internal resources, discursive practices, and intentionally designed pedagogical conditions.