Towards an Industry-Aligned Assessment of Critical Thinking in the Pharmaceutical Sciences and Beyond

Critical thinking is increasingly a core competency for students of the STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medical sciences) disciplines to master as industry bodies, accreditation boards, and companies are requiring graduates to demonstrate these skills in the workplace. At university, students need to do more than learn about CT abstractly and instead need to be able to practice applying CT in work-appropriate situations. This dissertation defines a novel conceptualisation of industry-aligned critical thinking – systematicity, business-sense, multiple solutions, consideration of implications, and cause identification – and presents a draft tailored assessment of critical thinking for the pharmaceutical sciences.