CRITICAL THINKING
can be transferred neatly from lecturer to student. Judgement is the capacity to weigh competing possibilities, recognise what matters in a particular context and act with an awareness of consequences, values and uncertainty. It is slow, uncomfortable and resistant to standardisation. Yet judgement is precisely what business schools claim to develop when they talk about leadership, ethics and responsible decision-making. Students are not simply being prepared to recall concepts. They are being prepared, at least in principle, to navigate complexity, ambiguity and consequences that cannot be optimised away. Much of what students now struggle to articulate sits in this space. They can explain what they did, but not why it mattered. They can describe an outcome, but not the reasoning that led there. They can reproduce a logical structure, but not always the process of sense-making that shaped it. These are not gaps in intelligence. They are gaps in how thinking has been made visible and assessable. For years, business schools have tried to cultivate this kind of thinking implicitly. Case discussions, group work and experiential projects all aim to encourage judgement. But when these elements are treated as secondary to content coverage or assessment efficiency, their developmental purpose blurs. Students learn that what ultimately counts is the final answer, not the reasoning that produced it. AI disrupts this quiet compromise. When a tool can generate plausible answers with ease, it forces a question that education has hitherto been able to avoid: What is the distinctively human contribution we are trying to develop? Rethinking curricula & assessment The answer is not creativity alone, nor is it emotional intelligence in the abstract. It is the ability to form and defend judgements in situations where there is no single correct answer. It is the capacity to explain why one option was chosen and what was sacrificed in the process. This kind of thinking has always been central to effective leadership. AI has simply made its absence more visible. If AI exposes gaps in how students develop judgement, the implications extend beyond individual assignments. They reach into how business schools design curricula, talk about employability and define educational success.
For years, there has been pressure to demonstrate relevance and impact. Business schools are asked to show alignment with employer needs and clear returns on investment. In response, curricula often become crowded with skills and competencies that can be neatly articulated and measured. What is lost is not rigour, but visibility. The work of thinking becomes assumed rather than designed for. This is most apparent in assessment. When assessment privileges fluency, structure and correct application of models, it sends a clear signal about what matters. Students become adept at producing convincing outputs, but less practised at making their reasoning explicit or interrogating assumptions. From a leadership perspective, this creates a tension that AI makes harder to ignore. Institutions claim to develop graduates who can navigate complexity and exercise ethical judgement. Yet educational processes often reward certainty over curiosity and answers over inquiry. When outputs can be generated quickly, the credibility of assessment rests increasingly on whether it captures thinking rather than presentation. This does not require rejecting technology. It requires clarity about what development is actually being sought. If judgement is central, curricula need to create space for uncertainty, debate and explanation. Assessment needs to value reasoning processes, not just conclusions. A cultural shift, not a technical fix For business school leaders, this is not a minor technical adjustment; it is a cultural shift. It requires institutions to move beyond asking whether students can perform, towards asking whether they can account for their decisions in ways that are thoughtful and ethically grounded. Much of the current conversation about AI in education is framed around control. eg how do we manage its use and protect standards? These are necessary questions, but a more fundamental one sits beneath them. What kind of thinkers are business schools trying to develop? If the value of business education rests only on the ability to produce competent outputs, AI presents an obvious challenge. But if its value lies in helping students learn how to judge, decide and take responsibility in complex situations, then AI changes the conversation rather than ending it. This is not about nostalgia or resisting technology. It is about recognising that thinking has always been the hardest part of learning to teach, assess and defend. AI has simply removed the comfort of pretending otherwise. For business schools, the opportunity is not to compete with artificial intelligence, but to refocus on what remains irreducibly human. The formation of judgement. The ability to explain decisions. The capacity to hold values, uncertainty and consequences in view at the same time. If AI forces these questions to be confronted more honestly, it may turn out to be less of a disruption than a reminder. A reminder that education has never been about answers alone, but about learning how to think our way towards them.
BIOGRAPHY Dr Paul Jones is associate dean for postgraduate education and student experience at Aston Business School. A work psychologist by training, his background spans human resource management and training & development, as well as business education leadership. Jones’ work focuses on judgement, student development and the role of thinking in leadership and professional formation, particularly in the context of AI, assessment and contemporary higher education
Ambition • ISSUE 4 • 2026 43
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