Student-Centered Learning and Higher-Order Thinking Skills in Engineering Students* SOO EUN CHAE 1 and MI SUK LEE 2 1 Associate professor, Jukheon gil 7, Gangneung-Wonju National University, South Korea. E-mail: schae@gwnu.ac.kr 2 Lecturer, Jukheon gil 7, Gangneung-Wonju National University, South Korea. E-mail: ssuk0508@gwnu.ac.kr The current study aimed to investigate the use of higher-order thinking (HOT) skills by engineering students and to classify student profile groups according to the underlying constructs of HOT. We recruited 260 engineering students from six universities in South Korea. The data were analyzed in terms of the existing latent profiles and the chi-square test between the profile groups and their experience of different types of instruction. The latent profile analysis revealed that the use of HOT skills could be classified into four groups (i.e., a lower-order thinking group, a creative and argumentative group, an analytical and caring group, and a HOT group). A chi-square test between the four categorizations of HOT skill uses and instruction methods was not statistically significant. A majority of the students were classified in the HOT group. However, of the six constructs, the creativity skill was the least used, as opposed to skills that fell under other constructs. Therefore, supplementary instruction to fill this gap is suggested. Keywords: engineering college students; higher-order thinking skills; latent profile analysis 1. Introduction Recently, much research has been conducted on the effectiveness of various classes that aim to cultivate higher-order thinking (HOT) skills to improve the academic achievement of science and engineering students. Such student-centered classes include active learning [1], problem-based learning [2], and inquiry-based learning [3, 4]. The advantage of this student-centered approach is that students are likely to increase their level of instructional involvement and thus to solve problems as well as ultimately to develop HOT skills [5] such as application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, which were classified as high-level activities in Bloom’s taxonomy [6]. Most scholars who have studied HOT skills have emphasized scientific thinking processes such as questioning and inquiry [7, 8]. This trend is due to the paradigm of traditional educational psychol- ogy, which interprets thought from a cognitive point of view. In recent years, however, the view that positive aspects such as ‘‘care’’ must be acknowledged as a subculture of thinking, espe- cially of high thinking ability, has emerged. Lipman [9, 10], a representative scholar who makes such claims, regarded HOT skills as a com- bination of critical thinking, creative thinking, and caring thinking. According to this point of view, a person with HOT skills tends to consider others when examining problematic situations to find a basis for solving the problem, to synthesize various points of view and to create alternative plans [11]. However, it is difficult to conclude that inquiry- based learning and student-centered classes are related to students’ use of HOT skills. Based on an in-depth observation of students in scientific inquiry classes, Marshall and Horton [12] reported that the level of students’ intellectual ability (or higher thinking skills) was negatively associated with the time spent exploring problems. In other words, students with less developed intellectual skills spent more time exploring than managing or solving problems. Therefore, it is concluded that one must provide suitable steps for each student according to their cognitive levels rather than simply providing them with problem-based instructions. Another issue in developing engineering students’ HOT skills is how the underlying constructs of HOT will be manifested to students. It is unclear how these underlying constructs actually appear to stu- dents once the HOT skills are defined in considera- tion of the students’ characteristics. Will the underlying constructs appear similar, especially among engineering students, for whom authentic problem solving is important? Or will they have a certain pattern and be divided into different groups? If several different groups of HOT skill patterns are revealed, what is the relationship between the groupings of these tendencies and the types of instruction (e.g., student-centered, instructor-cen- tered) in which they appear? This study was con- ducted to answer these questions. The current study is expected to benefit research- ers and practitioners in engineering education by demonstrating ways to infer the evaluation account- ability of student characteristics. For instance, these results can be used for university-level evaluation in courses at universities. The use of HOT skills by * Accepted 12 December 2018. 617 International Journal of Engineering Education Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 617–622, 2019 0949-149X/91 $3.00+0.00 Printed in Great Britain # 2019 TEMPUS Publications.