Today’s complex, dynamic, interconnected world presents the field of education (“Education 4.0”) with significant challenges in developing competencies for reasoning for complexity. This article analyzes complex thinking as a macro-competency with sub-competencies of critical, systemic, scientific, and innovative thinking in educational environments. We worked with the systematic literature review method, extracting 39 articles in the Scopus and Web of Science databases using keywords words of interest and applying inclusion and exclusion criteria. Seven research questions guided the data analysis. The results highlighted that: (a) there are common characteristics of studies linking complex thinking, critical thinking, and creative thinking; (b) there is predominance of the qualitative method in the studies; (c) the critical thinking competency has been the most addressed in the research; (d) the predominant components of Education 4.0 are teaching methods and techniques; and (e) the three challenges that stand out for educational research are project feasibility, research opportunities, and required skills. This article is intended to be of value to academic and social communities and decision-makers interested in developing reasoning for complexity within the framework of Education 4.0.

Rationale: The development of research skills in the higher education environment is a necessity because universities must be concerned about training professionals who use the methods of science to transform reality. Furthermore, within research competencies, consideration must be given to those that allow for the development of academic reading and writing in university students since this is a field that requires considerable attention from the educational field at the higher level.Objective: This study aims to conduct a systematic review of the literature that allows the analysis of studies related to the topics of research competencies and the development of academic reading and writing.Method: The search was performed by considering the following quality criteria: (1) Is the context in which the research is conducted at higher education institutions? (2) Is the development of academic reading and writing considered? (3) Are innovation processes related to the development of academic reading and writing considered? The articles analyzed were published between 2015 and 2019.Results: Forty-two papers were considered for analysis after following the quality criterion questions. Finally, the topics addressed in the analysis were as follows: theoretical–conceptual trends in educational innovation studies, dominant trends and methodological tools, findings in research competencies for innovation in academic literacy development, types of innovations related to the development of academic reading and writing, recommendations for future studies on research competencies and for the processes of academic reading and writing and research challenges for the research competencies and academic reading and writing processes.Conclusion: It was possible to identify the absence of studies about research skills to develop academic literacy through innovative models that effectively integrate the analysis of these three elements.

This paper aims to identify whether there are statistically significant differences in the level of perceived achievement of complex thinking competence in a population of Latin American students from different disciplines. The intention is to corroborate or question the academic literature that categorizes certain types of thinking (systemic, scientific, and critical) as characteristic elements of some disciplines. Methodologically, the validated eComplexity instrument was applied to a sample of 370 undergraduate students from a Mexican university. The results showed that the highest means for systems thinking can be found in the disciplines of Engineering, Business, and Humanities, while the highest means for critical thinking can be found among architecture students. However, statistically, the results showed no significant differences upon an overall comparison of all disciplines. In conclusion, the findings of this study prove to be valuable for educational institutions seeking to develop complex thinking in their students, demonstrating that the disciplinary area is not a limiting factor in developing a perception of achievement in a particular competence and its sub-competences.

IntroductionCurrently, young people have access to a large amount of information, so they must have the ability to critically analyze the texts they are exposed to in order to choose those that are useful for their training or research process, as well as to have the necessary skills to interact efficiently with the texts, especially with those specialized documents corresponding to their area of study. In this regard, this article aims to identify how cognitive, emotional, attitudinal, digital and personality aspects influence the development of academic literacy skills in university students.MethodResearch was conducted with the mixed method, in which quantitative instruments were applied and analyzed: a Likert scale questionnaire to measure the perceived level of mastery of academic literacy skills, which was applied to a sample of 595 students from higher education institutions in Mexico and Spain. In addition, a test was applied to identify personality type. For the qualitative part, the case study was chosen and the qualitative instruments applied were interviews with a teacher and a student and a focus group with five students.ResultsThe findings identified were as follows: (a) the cognitive aspect of academic literacy is the one with the lowest perceived mastery by students, (b) having a positive attitude favors the development of academic literacy, (c) by knowing the aspects of their personality that can favor the development of academic literacy, students can seek strategies to improve that competency, (d) the emotional part has repercussions in the process of developing the competence of academic literacy, (e) students prefer to interact with texts in digital spaces and therefore must learn to interact critically in virtual environments, (f) Mexican students perceive themselves to have a higher level of mastery of the academic literacy competency than Spanish students.ConclusionThe literature review and the mixed methods study allowed identifying the relevance of approaching academic literacy in university environments in a holistic manner through the analysis of the influence of cognitive, attitudinal, emotional, digital and personality aspects.

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