The study adopted a mixed methods design, comprising a longitudinal study of student outcomes and a qualitative investigation of how institutions are able to encourage processes of pedagogical change. The quantitative data are made available here. The study used a quasi-experimental approach, involving naturally occurring cases of novel intervention. In order to assess the impact of these interventions on critical thinking, we compared these interventions to other cases which, as far as possible, differed only in the absence of such intervention (i.e. a prospective cohort design with comparison over time between intervention cases and matched controls). After the second assessment, gains in scores on the critical thinking assessment were compared, in order to investigate whether students enrolled in the ‘intervention’ faculties demonstrated more progress than students enrolled in faculties which had not attempted any pedagogical reform. Additional analysis of the quantitative results helped us to determine which pedagogical practices had the strongest impact on improvements in critical thinking ability and investigate the possibility of differential impact across students.New understanding of the ways in which higher education contributes to economic and human development has strengthened the justification for investment in higher education in lower-income contexts in recent years. This, in turn, has prompted a wave of reform and revitalisation efforts within African higher education systems. One of the primary assumptions motivating such reforms is that higher education encourages the ability to think critically about problems and to use evidence when making decisions. However, there is evidence to suggest that the assumption that students improve their critical thinking skills as a result of university study may not be valid in many African contexts. Concern about the capacity of graduates from African universities to demonstrate 'high skills', such as critical thinking, has prompted a growing recognition of the need for pedagogical change within many African higher education institutions. A problem for higher education policy in the region, however, is that this renewed interest in the importance of teaching and learning is supported by limited empirical evidence, as there has been little analysis of the effectiveness of pedagogical practice within African universities. Although there is a substantial body of literature investigating the ways in which academic experiences at university can positively influence the development of student critical thinking skills, much of the current evidence rests on research conducted in other cultural contexts, particularly the USA, UK, Australia and, to a limited extent, East Asia. There are, therefore, concerns about how applicable such findings may be to African university contexts. This project aims to expand the existing evidence base around how pedagogical practices affect the development of critical thinking at African higher education institutions by investigating the impact of locally-generated pedagogical interventions on student critical thinking ability in Kenya, Ghana and Botswana. The study follows a mixed methods design, comprising a longitudinal study of student outcomes and a qualitative investigation of how institutions are able to encourage processes of pedagogical change. In each country context, our institutional sample will consist of six faculties: three which have been purposively selected due to their attempts at pedagogical reform, and three 'matched' faculties which have similar characteristics to the intervention faculties but have not yet attempted any pedagogical interventions. Within each faculty, a random sample of 100 incoming students will complete a critical thinking assessment (adapted for use in the study contexts) at the beginning of their first year and again at the end of their second year at university. Gains in assessment scores will be compared between faculties, in order to investigate whether students enrolled in the intervention faculties demonstrate more progress than students enrolled in faculties which have not attempted any pedagogical reform. Additional analysis will investigate which pedagogical practices have the strongest impact on improvements in critical thinking ability. Parallel to the longitudinal study, in-depth qualitative case studies will be conducted within the 'intervention' Faculties, in order to gain insight into the intervention implementation process. The results of the project will provide potentially generalisable evidence of the effectiveness of pedagogical interventions currently being implemented within African universities.

Within each of the selected research sites, a random sample of 170 incoming students was recruited to complete a critical thinking assessment during their first year - and again during their third year - at university. Although our longitudinal design only required that 100 students from each site participated in both rounds of data collection, we anticipated a 30% non-response rate in the first instance and an additional 15% attrition rate between the two rounds. In addition to the critical thinking assessment, participants were asked to complete a number of other quantitative instruments, intended to measure participant characteristics related to the individual (‘input’) variables. During the first round of data collection, during their first year at university, participants were asked to complete: 1) An adapted version of the Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ), an instrument designed to capture student approaches to learning, used as a measure of participant approaches to learning; and 2) A short demographic survey, designed exclusively for this project, which included questions about participant gender, family and secondary school background, secondary school achievement/qualifications, socio-economic status (as captured through an asset-based index) and university enrolment. During the second round of data collection, during their third year, participants once again completed the adapted SPQ, so that we could ascertain if there had been any change in their approaches to learning over time. They also completed an adapted version of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) - a questionnaire designed to track institutional implementation of the pedagogical practices found to positively influence critical thinking and student engagement in other country contexts – in order to collect information about the academic experiences encountered by participating students at their institutions.