Introduction:
In recent years, an increasing number of countries around the world have placed special importance on the cultivation of critical thinking (CT) at all levels of education (e.g., Forawi, 2016; Kay & Greenhill, 2011; Liu, Frankel, & Roohr, 2014; McPeck, 2016). A main motivation
behind this trend is the wide acceptance of the idea that developing students’ CT is crucial for their academic success and will overall increase the quality of education.

However, in spite of the consensus on the importance of CT for academic success, empirical research has lagged behind in clarifying how CT supports academic performance and whether CT is different from the general cognitive ability that is often suggested as a cognitive foundation of academic development (Peng & Kievit, 2020).