Critical Thinking in Health Sciences and How It Pertains to Sonography Education: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

Objective: Critical thinking is an important skill that sonographers must develop beginning in educational programs and into professional practice. Critical thinking requires students to reflect on information, use judgment skills, and engage in higher levels of thinking, including analysis, interpretation, inference, evaluation, and explanation, to formulate reliable decisions. Methods: Current research related to critical thinking has focused on medicine, nursing, physical therapy, pharmacy, and dental programs, but there has been no description of assessing sonography students. The Dreyfus model has been used as a framework to describe acquired skills that reflects students’ progress from novice to expert clinicians. This model illustrates specific cognitive abilities that students develop as they advance in education. Results: This review of the literature describes critical thinking skills coupled with a framework to understand different levels of cognitive thinking, as well as how it can be assessed. Conclusion: To understand differences between undergraduate sonography students and experts, the Dreyfus model is an excellent model to recognize progression. It can be used with the Health Sciences Reasoning Test, which is a nationally recognized critical thinking examination that can ascertain different levels of health sciences students’ critical thinking skills.

Quality Improvement Initiatives in Sonography Education: A Review of the Literature

“…This literature review is concentrated on educational quality improvement and the majority of manuscripts addressed clinical and/or lab education. 13–22 Seven research studies highlighted didactic improvements 23–29 and two articles discussed education in general. 10,30 In comparison, articles on accreditation 30 and credentialing 10,29 were sparse.…”

“…Five articles discussed multiple sonography specialties 14,15,17,20,29 and eight articles were on sonography, in general. 10,19,21,23,26–28,30…”

“…Eighteen of the articles were published between 2010 and 2020, 10,13–29 with 13 of these published in the last 5 years. 10,15–17,19–22,24,26–29 The remaining article, and the sole one focused on accreditation, was published in 2001. 30 Of note, 16 articles were published in the same journal, the Journal of Diagnostic Medical Sonography .…”

“…30 Of note, 16 articles were published in the same journal, the Journal of Diagnostic Medical Sonography . 10,13,14,17–29 The remaining manuscripts include two dissertations 15,16 and one article published in the Canadian Journal of Medical Radiation Technology . 30…”

“…As seen in Figure 1, the 19 manuscripts included in this review are comprised of 15 research studies, 13–22,24,26,27,29,30 3 literature reviews, 23,25,28 and 1 symposia article. 10 Of the research studies, seven utilized mixed-methods, 16,17,20,22,24,26,27 five included quantitative analyses, 13,14,18,19,29 and three used qualitative techniques.…”