Studying creativity and critical thinking skills at university and students' future income.

• University education and future income are significantly connected with creativity and critical thinking. • Students who developed and used creativity and critical thinking skills in the process of education had bigger success in future work, which influenced their income. • The quality of university training is reflected in the personal income of graduates and can be objectively assessed by this criterion. • The size of a graduate's income may also depend on his/her age. The problem of students' income is characterized by relevance taking into account the fact that its level depends on the level of the development of professional competencies that are necessary in modern world according to the quick improvement of technological process. The role of modern skills of creativity and critical thinking in the process of obtaining education and future income is determined. The study included 3 500 graduates of 28 selected universities, united into 280 homogeneous groups, which were examined through big data analysis. According to a survey conducted in the first stage before studying under the developed program, only 35% of students rated their level of creativity as high, with 40% having an average level of creativity and 25% of respondents having a low level of creativity, indicating a lack of tasks for development of this professional skill in the curriculum. The received answers show that the most developed critical thinking skills are problem-solving (82%) and analysis (73%). The results of the survey showed that teachers still use traditional teaching methods, as evidenced by the indicators of tasks to improve skills of creativity and critical thinking, as dominated by «reading and learning new things» (37%), «comprehension and analysis of information» (33%). The second stage of the experiment presupposed studying under the developed program consisting of two thematic modules. The purpose of this program was to develop the level of students' creativity and critical thinking skills and determine the influence of them on the students' income. The results of the re-survey show the increasing of the level of students' income as well as in 6 universities, at least one group of respondents had earnings of more than 20 thousand yuan/month, while only one university had 5 groups where incomes of all participants exceeded 20 thousand yuan/month. Compared with the results of the first survey after the studying of the developed program, the indicators of the development of critical thinking skills according to the results of the re-survey increased, the percentage of which is represented by the following indicators: problem-solving (92%), analysis (85%), interpretation (75%), inference (80%), explanation (74%), open-mindedness (63%), self-regulation (66%). The results of the repeated survey on student income proved the effectiveness of training according to the developed curriculum, as evidenced by the obtained indicators of student income levels: the high level (21%), average (25%), below average (25%), above average (10%)), low (5%) and those who do not work (4%). The results of the research can be applied for a more in-depth study of temporal correlations in income fluctuations among graduates of an educational institution. Moreover, the gained outcomes can contribute to the identification of patterns to create a model for determining the quality of education in universities and colleges, in particular, the development of curricula and programs to take into account the work on improving the practical skills of creativity and critical thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]