There are frequent reports of pedagogical proposals that, among their objectives, seek to promote the development of critical thinking skills, which are an important part of most university educational models. The concept of critical thinking is complex and involves a set of skills that should ideally be developed from the basic levels of education. In higher education, the incorporation of so-called soft skills has become a critical aspect of planning the educational process, and the complexity of this situation grows as new advances in available resources emerge and are rapidly incorporated into pedagogical practices, as is happening with the use of artificial intelligence, for example. However, the nature of the impact that the use of these resources can have on the development of students' soft skills, particularly critical thinking, is still under discussion. In this context, it is necessary to evaluate the current state of the use of basic reasoning skills, such as deductive and inductive reasoning, in students beginning their university studies. In this way, a reliable basis can be established for the design of strategies that incorporate new pedagogical resources without negatively impacting student learning. The objective of this study was to study the frequency of use of deductive and inductive reasoning skills in the context of the General Chemistry Laboratory of first-year science and engineering students at a Peruvian university. The different types of reasoning in each category were taken into account, and the laboratory reports of two groups of students were used as the unit of analysis. One group corresponded to students from Chemistry Laboratory 1 (first semester), and the second group corresponded to students from Chemistry Laboratory 2 (second semester). The results showed that both groups primarily used their causal inductive reasoning skills. The first group also demonstrated use, although to a lesser extent, of their hypothetical reasoning and inductive generalization skills. This group showed almost no evidence of the use of deductive reasoning skills. The second group showed a higher frequency of hypothetical reasoning, as well as deductive reasoning skills such as conditional arguments and categorical reasoning. These results are relevant as input for planning pedagogical strategies with a potential positive impact on student development.

Keywords: Reasoning skills, critical thinking, science education, higher education.