Complex thinking and its relationship with gender and age in a group of Mexican students

The literature addresses the importance of developing competencies, but not from the complexity theory, nor does it show the importance of the correlation between gender and age in this process. This article aims to show the results of a study seeking a possible correlation between the perceived achievement of complex thinking competency and gender and age in a student population attending a technological university in western Mexico. The intention is to argue whether there is a statistically significant difference in the acquisition and development of this competency between men and women of different ages during their training. Methodologically, a multivariate descriptive statistical analysis was carried out to demonstrate the relationship between these indicators. We concluded that there is evidence of a gender gap in developing the perceived achievement of the complex thinking competency and its sub-competencies since neither in the overall result nor in the specific results by indicator did women achieve results proportional to those of their male peers, although, in most competencies, they initially surpassed them. The learning experience shows that the gender gap in perceived achievement of complex thinking competency widens as the student population advances in their training process.