Pedagogy

Improving Students' Critical Thinking in the Age of Generative AI

This project explores how Generative AI impacts academic writing and challenges critical thinking in higher education. Building on the PACE framework (Prompting, Authenticity, Critical Thinking, Evaluation), it seeks ways to strengthen student learning and assessment in the AI era.

Start & End Date

01.10.2025 - 31.03.2027

Main Applicant

Zizka, L., EHL Hospitality Business School

External Funding

HES-SO

Critical thinking in an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Era: Creating critical opportunities for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)

Project Description

This project addresses what is being debated in all HEIs worldwide, i.e., the preponderance of the use of Generative AI Gen AI for all tasks in and outside the classroom. This includes graded work, including essays, short answers, and projects. In the end, one wonders if they are grading students or technology. Many faculty members are struggling to find ways to motivate their students to become critical thinkers (which is what employers seek). Faculty members are faced with work that is clearly AI-generated and, subsequently, gives no indication of the level of critical thinking the student has attained.

Thus, this project will complement Dr. Zizka’s earlier work on Academic Writing and Gen AI to investigate how critical thinking could be improved and assessed via Academic Writing tasks. Dr. Zizka has proposed a new movement (PACE) to slow down how Gen AI is introduced and implemented in AW. PACE stands for Prompt Engineering, Authenticity/Accuracy, Critical Thinking, and Evaluation/Assessment. This will provide the base of the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SoTL) 2026 workshop, where the project will be launched and invitations for participation will be sought.

Scientific Output

L. Zizka (2026), Critical thinking about artificial intelligence (ai): status report of graduate students, Journal of Tourism Futures, 10(1), 6-20

Related Academic Event

Each year, EHL hosts the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning Conference, a key event that brings together educators and researchers to exchange insights on innovative teaching practices and learning approaches. Discover how this annual conference connects to the themes explored in this research project.

EHL Blog

SoTL 2026: Slowing Down the PACE, Ramping Up Critical Thinking

The 8th annual International Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) conference brought together faculty members and researchers interested in conducting research on teaching and learning, with a particular emphasis on how technology is being used or should be used in higher education. The theme for this event was motivated by current events in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and the debate surrounding the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) in and outside of the classroom.

While Gen AI is touted as a means of saving time on academic tasks, it is not speed (alone) that we should be seeking. In what we refer to as the ‘best day of the year’, 35 participants spent the day sharing ideas and best practices.

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Creating Critical Opportunities for Higher Education Institutions Through SoTL

Every day, we read stories in the newspaper about AI. Some stories focus on the negative side, i.e., nefarious behavior such as cybercrime and fraud. Others are funny, such as the travelers who ended up in the wrong destination after trusting Chat GPT’s ‘advice’. However, the stories that capture our attention are those where AI prevails, providing solutions to daily problems and making our lives a bit simpler.

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