MAPPING RESEARCH ON GENERATIVE AI AND CRITICAL THINKING IN EDUCATION

Abstract

The swift progress of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), especially large language models like ChatGPT, has transformed the educational landscape by presenting novel opportunities for enhancing critical thinking and higher-order cognitive skills. However, despite growing interest, there remains limited systematic evidence on how scholarship has conceptualized and investigated the intersection of GenAI, as well as critical thinking in education, creating a gap in understanding both the scope and direction of this emerging field. This study aims to map and synthesize existing research through a bibliometric analysis to identify patterns, trends, and thematic clusters. Data were gathered from the Scopus database employing advanced search strategies with the keywords “generative” and “critical thinking,” restricted to English-language publications, and published between 2020 and 2025. The initial search yielded 645 publications that were further processed and refined using OpenRefine to ensure consistency and eliminate redundancies. Statistical trends, including annual publication output, country and institutional contributions, and leading sources, were examined using the Scopus Analyser, while intellectual structures and thematic networks were visualized through VOSviewer. The analysis revealed significant growth in publications since 2020, with strong contributions from the fields of computational linguistics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and education. Co-occurrence keyword mapping highlighted seven clusters, with “language models,” “reasoning ability,” and “critical thinking” emerging as core research themes. These findings underscore the centrality of GenAI in advancing reasoning and pedagogical applications, while also identifying emerging subfields such as chain-of-thought reasoning, prompt engineering, and higher-order thinking skills. By providing a comprehensive overview of publication trends, thematic networks, and intellectual structures, this study contributes to the body of knowledge by clarifying the current state of research and pointing to future directions for exploring how generative AI can effectively support critical thinking in educational contexts.