Critical thinking is conceptualized as an individual’s capacity for reasoned judgment and rational decision-making (Crilly, 2026; Hammer and Green, 2011). This capacity involves the skills of understanding, analyzing, reasoning, and evaluating, as well as dispositions such as open-mindedness that facilitate effective problem-solving (Lee et al., 2026; Miri et al., 2007). Supervisor support, a key relational factor in graduate education, encompasses both resources and supportive behaviors provided to the student (Cohen et al., 2000; Li et al., 2025). These resources include constructive feedback, opportunities for research engagement, and emotional support (Han et al., 2022; Vekkaila et al., 2018), while supportive behaviors involve encouraging students to voice their perspectives and motivating them to complete tasks (Govaerts and Dochy, 2014; Han and Wang, 2024). Commonly, supervisor support is categorized into four types: instrumental, emotional, informational, and co-constructional support (Anttila et al., 2023; Sagasser et al., 2015).

In graduate education, the supervisor-student relationship plays a pivotal role in fostering critical thinking. It facilitates a socialization process through which students dynamically develop their abilities in comprehension, analysis, inference, and evaluation. As the most direct source of social support for graduate students, supervisor support enhances critical thinking by providing both motivational and developmental opportunities (González-Ocampo and Castelló, 2019; Zhang et al., 2022). This occurs in two primary ways. First, through academic guidance and informational support, supervisors enhance students’ domain knowledge, self-efficacy, and overall academic experience (Robayo-Tamayo et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2022). Second, through supportive interactions, supervisors stimulate students’ academic interests and strengthen their decision-making capacity when solving problems (Anttila et al., 2023). Empirical evidence indicates that effective supervisors foster critical thinking by motivating students and creating opportunities for its development (Lee, 2008; Shahab and Barak, 2026). This cognitive skill is cultivated through systematic engagement in exploration, analysis, and problem-solving (Crilly, 2026; Şendağ and Ferhan Odabaşı, 2009). Specifically, supervisors guide students to develop rational thinking patterns, make reflective adjustments, and sustain this process through academic challenges. Based on this reasoning, we propose the following:

Passion involves a persistent emotional orientation toward activities that individual’s value and consistently pursue (Bélanger and Ratelle, 2021). This psychological state manifests as sustained engagement and goal-directed behavior. Contemporary research distinguishes two dimensions of passion: obsessive passion, which is driven by external contingencies, and harmonious passion, which arises from intrinsic motivation. Within academic contexts, passion represents an integrated psychological orientation that combines cognitive, affective, and volitional components toward academic pursuits (Izadpanah, 2023). Harmonious academic passion, in particular, is characterized by a positive and engaged orientation toward intellectual activities such as inquiry and problem-solving. This orientation fosters the development of students’ critical thinking skills (Schellenberg and Bailis, 2017; Sun et al., 2023; Wang et al., 2025).

Academic passion is significantly influenced by supervisor support. Indeed, the formation of positive academic attitudes and experiences fundamentally depends on such support (Han and Wang, 2024). Empirical evidence further indicates that supervisors’ provision of academic guidance and research resources directly fosters the development and maintenance of graduate students’ academic passion (Li et al., 2025). This relationship aligns with self-determination theory, which posits relatedness as one of three fundamental psychological needs essential for human motivation and development (Deci and Ryan, 2008; Manninen et al., 2022).

The supervisory relationship constitutes the most immediate and influential source of social support for graduate students. High-quality mentorship fulfills their fundamental need for relatedness (Deci and Ryan, 2008; Wang et al., 2024), thereby enhancing their academic passion. This passionate engagement, characterized by strong identification with and enthusiasm for research work, in turn cultivates critical thinking skills (Alvarez-Huerta et al., 2023; Ruiz-Alfonso and León, 2016). The research process inherently cultivates these abilities through sustained exploration, analysis, synthesis, and problem-solving. Consequently, as students invest greater cognitive and temporal resources into their work, their higher-order critical thinking capacity improves significantly (Zhou, 2021).

Academic engagement refers to students’ active, effortful involvement in learning, characterized by deliberate attempts to comprehend, analyze, and apply knowledge (Alvarez-Huerta et al., 2023; Hospel et al., 2016; Perkmann et al., 2021; Yun and Park, 2020). Within graduate education, supervisor support has a positive impact on students’ academic engagement. Specifically, the provision of academic resources and psychosocial support enhances students’ self-efficacy and fulfills their basic psychological needs, thereby promoting deeper and more sustained learning involvement (Jiang and Tanaka, 2022; Zhang and Kim, 2025). Furthermore, positive supervisory interactions significantly enhance graduate students’ learning motivation.

Supervisor support fosters a constructive learning environment, one that reduces psychological barriers, stimulates intellectual curiosity, and cultivates sustained academic interest. This environment, in turn, promotes deeper cognitive engagement and greater dedication of time to academic pursuits (Fredricks et al., 2016; Wang and Wang, 2024).

Supervisor support enhances graduate students’ critical thinking by fostering their academic engagement. Critical thinking develops as students actively internalize supervisory support into their cognitive competencies through deliberate practice and reflection (Bandura, 1997; Wang and Wang, 2024). This internalization is operationalized through engagement in academic activities, where students encounter diverse perspectives, build domain knowledge, and rigorously exercise higher-order cognitive skills (Loyola-Carrillo et al., 2025; Pekrun et al., 2011). Empirical evidence confirms that engaged learners show significantly greater improvement in analytical and evaluative thinking (Alvarez-Huerta et al., 2023; Fredricks et al., 2016; Miao et al., 2025). Within this context, supervisor support emerges as a pivotal factor in facilitating academic engagement (Cao et al., 2024; Vekkaila et al., 2018), thereby indirectly enhancing both knowledge integration and critical thinking capacities (Santos et al., 2023; Vincent-Lancrin, 2023). Based on this theoretical and empirical foundation, we propose the following hypothesis:

Social information processing theory elucidates how individuals cognitively transform external social cues into attitudinal and behavioral responses that shape their outcomes. According to the theory, this occurs through a sequential three-stage process: attending to and perceiving social cues, forming an evaluative attitude in response, and formulating a corresponding behavior (Kelemen et al., 2025; Zalesny and Ford, 1990). Social information serves as the primary input for this process, driving individuals’ sense making of their environment and guiding their subsequent adaptations. Thus, outcomes are ultimately determined by this mediated chain of perception, attitude formation, and behavior.

Within academic settings, supervisor support is the primary conduit of social information about research norms and expectations (Cao et al., 2024). According to social information processing theory, this support shapes critical thinking development through a sequential mediation process involving academic passion and academic engagement. Specifically, supervisor support fosters academic passion as a proximal outcome (Bonneville-Roussy et al., 2013; Li et al., 2025; Ruiz-Alfonso and León, 2016). This passion, in turn, positively predicts and enhances academic engagement (Stoeber et al., 2011; Zhou, 2021). It is through this heightened engagement that students’ critical thinking skills are ultimately developed and refined (Santos et al., 2023).

Informed by the established link between academic passion, deep engagement, and improved analytical skills, this study proposes a sequential mediation model (Curran et al., 2015; Shahab and Barak, 2026). Specifically, we hypothesize that supervisor support indirectly enhances graduate students’ critical thinking by fostering their academic passion, which in turn increases their academic engagement, thereby developing their critical thinking competencies.

This study employed a quantitative research method. Between August 8 and 28, 2022, online questionnaires were distributed to graduate students in tourism management using a convenience sampling approach. The respondents were selected for the following reasons: First, the tourism industry is highly dynamic and faces complex challenges such as cross-cultural management, sustainability issues, and unpredictable disruptions. Consequently, tourism management graduate students require well-developed critical thinking skills to systematically evaluate information, assess risks, and generate innovative solutions (Tang et al., 2024; Tzanelli and Korstanje, 2020). Second, the field of tourism management frequently grapples with ethical dilemmas, from over-commercialization to community conflicts. Furthermore, conducting tourism research necessitates integrating diverse disciplinary perspectives, including economics, sociology, and environmental science. Within this complex landscape, critical thinking is an indispensable competency. It allows graduate students to synthesize distinct theoretical frameworks, balance competing stakeholder interests, and ultimately formulate strategies that advance long-term sustainability (Bramwell and Lane, 2014; Tang et al., 2024).

Questionnaires were distributed to graduate students through online WeChat groups. WeChat is a widely used multi-platform instant messaging application in China, which facilitates the creation of groups for administrative purposes such as disseminating notifications, sharing information, and fostering communication among members.

The anonymous questionnaires were distributed to graduate students via WeChat groups, leveraging academic networks and personal connections to reach students at universities across Guangdong Province. A total of 521 questionnaires were returned, yielding 494 valid responses (a 94.8% response rate). Respondent characteristics are summarized in Table 1. To contextualize the sample, universities in China are often categorized by national initiatives. “Project 211,” launched in 1995, aimed to enhance research quality at approximately 100 key universities. Its subset, “Project 985” (1998), focused on developing about 39 of these into world-class institutions (Lin and Wang, 2022).

The questionnaire measured five variables. All items utilized a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Perceived supervisor support was assessed using a 12-item scale based on Overall et al. (2011). The use of this scale in a similar context is supported by recent work (Han et al., 2022). This scale included four items pertaining specifically to academic support (e.g., “My supervisor provides practical advice on planning and implementing academic research”). It also measured emotional support (e.g., “My supervisor expresses understanding and empathy when I encounter difficulties”) and autonomy support (e.g., “My supervisor offers opportunities for me to independently choose my academic research direction”). Cronbach’s Alpha was 0.957.

Academic passion was measured using an eight-item scale developed by Vallerand et al. (2007). The Chinese application of this scale follow the work of Zhou et al., (2025). Sample items included “Engaging in academic research gives me a sense of fulfillment” and “If possible, I would devote all my time to academic research.” Cronbach’s Alpha was 0.912.

The measurement of academic engagement was from Schaufeli et al. (2002). It was measured using the scale developed by Wickramasinghe et al. (2023). There were three items, for example, “I actively participate in group meetings and discussions within my research team” and “I often discuss academic questions with students from other discipline.” Cronbach’s Alpha was 0.796.

Critical thinking was assessed using a nine-item scale developed by Facione et al. (1995) and shortened by Bell and Loon (2015), a version that has been applied in relevant educational context (Wickramasinghe et al., 2023). Representative items include: “I am skilled at solving problems” and “I effectively apply the knowledge I have learned.” Cronbach’s Alpha was 0.915.

This study employed structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate the relationships among supervisor support, academic passion, academic engagement, and graduate students’ critical thinking. SEM is a powerful multivariate technique that enables the simultaneous testing of relationships between latent constructs and their observed indicators (Bollen, 1989b; Han et al., 2022).

In this study, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed using structural equation modeling (SEM) to assess the construct validity of the measurement model, testing how well the observed variables represented their respective latent constructs (Bollen, 1989a; Yang et al., 2025). The application of SEM aligns with its established use in social science research, particularly within education (Tan and Koh, 2023). For instance, SEM is widely adopted in studies that examine complex relationships among factors influencing student academic performance and development, as it provides in-depth insights into such models (Yin and Huang, 2021).

To validate the measurement model, LISREL 8.80 was applied to test the validity of the variables. The CFA results showed that the six-factor model (academic support, emotional support, autonomous support, critical thinking, academic passion, and academic engagement) fit the data well (Table 2). The six-factor model with the ratio of chi square to degree of freedom = 3.32 < 5; Root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.097 < 0.1; Normed fit index (NFI) = 0.93; Non-normed fit index (NNFI) = 0.94; Comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.95; Incremental fit index (IFI) = 0.95 showed better than other models. The CFA results also indicated that the common method bias was acceptable in this study (Hu and Bentler, 1999).

Table 3 presents the means, standard deviations, and correlations among the variables. The results reveals that the key variables, including supervisor support, critical thinking, academic passion, and academic engagement are positively correlated with each other.

Drawing on social information processing theory, this study investigates how supervisor support influences graduate students’ critical thinking by elucidating the underlying mechanisms. This study makes three key contributions to the graduate education literature.

First, it extends critical thinking research by specifically examining its predictor among graduate students, a population with an explicit emphasis on critical thinking skills development (Calma and Cotronei-Baird, 2021; Crilly, 2026; Halpern, 2014; Shahab and Barak, 2026). It builds on mentorship research by demonstrating how the supervisor responsibility system in graduate education acts as a crucial mechanism for competency development. This extends prior theory and provides empirical validation for the pivotal role of supervisory support in fostering critical thinking (Nielsen et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2022). Furthermore, the results support conceptualizing graduate students’ critical thinking as an advanced, socially-constructed capability that emerges through interactions between supervisor and graduate students (Aston, 2023).

Second, this study advances the literature by examining the impact of supervisor support on graduate students’ critical thinking through a relational lens, a perspective underexplored in existing research. While prior studies have predominantly focused on individual factors (e.g., prior knowledge, motivation) or systemic factors (e.g., curriculum design, institutional support) (Ab Kadir, 2018; Aston, 2023; Boryczko, 2022; Lijie et al., 2024), this investigation shifts attention to mentorship. It specifically elucidates how supervisor support facilitates critical thinking through social-cognitive mechanisms. This finding aligns with established theoretical perspectives that position supervisor support as a critical form of social support, demonstrating significant positive effects on graduate students’ competency development (Cao et al., 2024; Han and Wang, 2024; Li et al., 2025). The impact of supervisory relationships on the development of graduate students’ critical thinking has been historically underemphasized in the literature (Li et al., 2025; Miao et al., 2025). As the primary source in academic settings, supervisor support represents a fundamental yet understudied mechanism for cultivating higher-order thinking skills. The findings substantiate that supervisor support has a positive impact on critical thinking competency, thereby expanding theoretical understanding of cognitive development through a relational lens.

Third, this study contributes to the literature on academic motivation and cognition by elucidating the mechanism linking supervisor support to graduate students’ critical thinking. The findings reveal that academic passion and engagement serve as crucial mediating pathways, thereby explaining the psychological mechanism in the relationship between supervisor support and graduate students’ critical thinking. Grounded in social information processing theory, we provide a novel framework for understanding how supervisor support translates into graduate students’ critical thinking. This extends prior work demonstrating motivational influences on critical thinking (Han and Wang, 2024; Lijie et al., 2024). It highlights that motivation is not given, but arises in a specific social environment (Kelemen et al., 2025; Zalesny and Ford, 1990).

This study conceptualizes critical thinking as the product of a social construction process (Geng et al., 2024). Consistent with this view, graduate students’ critical thinking is motivated by social relationships. As prior research notes, the perception of the social environment serves as an antecedent to individual attitudes and behaviors (Boekhorst, 2015; Miao et al., 2025; Zhang et al., 2022). The findings specify this mechanism by showing how supervisor-transmitted social information is internalized through passionate engagement, thereby facilitating critical thinking. The results confirm a sequential mediation path (supervisor support → academic passion → academic engagement → critical thinking), empirically validating social information processing models within graduate education.

First, within the framework of China’s supervisor responsibility system, supervisors must proactively fulfill their pivotal role by providing comprehensive support. This entails addressing students’ needs in a timely manner, supplying essential resources (e.g., social capital, academic networking opportunities, access to advanced research), and maintaining open lines of communication. Beyond instrumental support, supervisors should offer emotional encouragement and constructive guidance to bolster students’ confidence and intrinsic motivation. Practical measures, such as assisting with research planning and facilitating regular presentations, are effective means to ensure continuous development.

Second, supervisors should actively cultivate graduate students’ academic passion, as it is the intrinsic driver of critical thinking and sustained research engagement. When students encounter difficulties in executing research plans independently, supervisors can provide targeted academic guidance coupled with consistent emotional support to bolster confidence. Furthermore, supervisors should broaden students’ intellectual perspectives through knowledge-sharing, foster genuine curiosity in their research topics, and enhance academic self-efficacy by entrusting them with autonomy while providing supportive assistance.

Third, a key supervisory priority should be to foster graduate students’ academic engagement, given its fundamental role in cultivating critical thinking. Since this higher-order skill is refined through practice, active engagement systematically strengthens students’ ability to analyze and solve problems. This requires students to adopt proactive academic attitudes and behaviors. In essence, academic engagement serves as the crucial link between theory and practice, transforming cognitive development into tangible competencies through actionable behaviors.

While this study establishes a theoretical framework linking supervisor support to graduate students’ critical thinking, several limitations should be acknowledged. The primary limitation is the sample’s focus on tourism management students within China’s supervisor responsibility system, which may affect the generalizability of the findings (Miao et al., 2025). To enhance external validity, future studies should recruit participants from a broader range of disciplines and investigate different supervisory contexts.

The second limitation pertains to the use of self-reported measures (Han et al., 2022; Zhou et al., 2025). Potential common method bias was assessed via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), which indicated acceptable levels. Future studies should seek to validate these findings by incorporating data from multiple sources.

Third, the cross-sectional design of this study limits the ability to establish causal relationships between supervisor support and graduate students’ critical thinking (Han et al., 2022; Lee et al., 2026). As critical thinking is a dynamic developmental process, longitudinal research would better capture its progression and more rigorously examine the causal mechanisms linking supervisory factors to its trajectory.