Mohammad Reza Raeisoon - Department of Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Birjand, Iran|PhD Student of Higher Education Management, Allameh Tabatabei University, Tehran, Iran|Social determinants of health research center
Saeid Ghiasi Nadooshan - Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Allameh Tabatabai University, Tehran, Iran
Mohammad Eslahi - M.A educational administration, urmia university, iran
Yahya Mohammadi - EDC Employee at Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Birjand.Iran.|PhD. Student of Curriculum Planning, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran.

Background: Educational achievement is highly important in the higher education and universities’ system in all countries. Critical thinking and problem solving skills are the main outcomes of higher education and the accreditation criteria. Happiness is one of the fundamental emotions of human beings that has a crucial role in the health of individuals and society. It could be the catalyst and facilitator in the development of critical thinking. The purpose of the present study was to compare critical thinking skills and happiness among the students of different universities. Methods: This is a descriptive analytical study conducted on 244 students of different universities of Ghaen that entered the study by multistage cluster sampling. Rytas questionnaire of critical thinking 2003 and Oxford Happiness questionnaire were used and the data were analyzed by SPSS (ver. 14), Pearson s correlation, independent t-test, and ANOVA and the statistical significance level was 0.05. Results: 163 participants (66.8%) were male and 81 students (33.2%) were female. The results presented that there is a significant difference between the mean of critical thinking and happiness among the students based on universities (p0. 05). Furthermore, there is a significant difference between critical thinking and happiness (r=0. 246). Conclusions: Educational programmers should concern critical thinking and the methods to upgrade it. Moreover, the teachers should use new teaching methods in the curriculum in order to increase happiness in the students.  

Keywords: Critical Thinking, Happiness, Students