The article deals with the problem of psychological formation of students' professional competence through critical thinking and comprehensively analyzes the psychological features of the student period, the stages of development, and the features of development. The clarified structure and content of the concepts of "professional competence" and "critical thinking" are justified.

Critical thinking is a form of creative activity of the subject of education, stimulated by educational and cognitive motives, which are not only ways of its implementation, but also a problem of creating an opportunity to organize teaching activities, forming the professional competence of a person, and at the same time providing a logical connection of factors that affect the result of their education. provided.

The psychological formation of professional competence of students through critical thinking is considered in the content analysis of scientific-theoretical and scientific-methodological literature, the bases, principles, methods, components, dimensions and indicators that guide the formation of professional competence of the future specialist are defined.