The influence of information technologies on creative and critical thinking of students / La influencia de las tecnologías de la información en el pensamiento crítico y creativo de los estudiantes

Innovative information technology is developing rapidly and is penetrating many areas of life, including education. The paper measures the impact of innovative information technology, using augmented reality (AR) as an example, on the development of creativity and critical thinking among students. The study was conducted among 180 students from Tonghua Normal University in China. The research design: a pre-test and post-test experiment with a control group. The following research findings were obtained: academic knowledge of the experimental group was higher (15.73) than that of the control group (12.13). ARLE model improved critical thinking (8.77 in AR group, 7.60 in the traditional group) and creativity (593 in AR group, 570 in the traditional group). The resulting data demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed model of learning with the augmented reality technology. The research findings have practical implications. For example, they may be used to create new augmented reality apps for other disciplines and majors. The study presents recommendations on the development of creative and critical thinking, which teachers of various disciplines can apply in practice. The impact of other digital tools in education needs to be carefully studied to determine their effectiveness.