Using prompt engineering to foster critical thinking in higher education

This paper presents a systematic review of the latest research (2023 2025) concerning the contribution of prompt design to the development of critical thinking skills in the field of AI-supported eval practices. The review combines studies of empirical and conceptual nature that are examining various prompting strategies, such as role-based, Socratic, scenario-driven, iterative, and chain-of thought approaches. According to the findings, well designed prompts essentially stimulate the higher-order cognitive processes, which are the ones that involve the critical thinking skills of analysis, creation, and reflective reasoning and also that they lead to increased engagement and metacognitive awareness. The results additionally point to the possibility of prompt engineering to fundamentally change the role of AI as a mere informational resource to that of a co-teacher with active engagement in pedagogy, albeit with some issues still existing in the area of teacher preparation, curriculum modification, and AI literacy. In conclusion, prompt engineering is just as much a teaching practice as it is a technical skill and it is at the core of students’ critical and reflective abilities development in modern learning environments.