Effects of a Nursing Literature Reading Course on Promoting Critical Thinking in Two-Year Nursing Program Students

Abstract

AB STRACT: Crit i cal think ing is essen tial for pro fes sional nurs ing prac tice. Pro moting crit i cal think ing with teach ing strat e gies has been a focus of nurs ing edu ca tion and nurs ing research. Read ing and writ ing assign ments are teach ing strat e gies for fos ter ing crit i cal think ing abil ity. We devel oped a course with the empha sis on crit i cal read ing and writ ing. The pur poses of this study were to explore the effect of the course and teach ing strat e gies on pro mot ing crit i cal think ing and to under stand the learn ing expe ri ence and per cep tion of nurs ing stu dents as part of the course assess ment plan. Quasi-experimental design and pur pos ive sam pling were used. 170 stu dents of a two-year nurs ing pro gram were grouped into an exper i men tal and a controll group depend ing on whether or not they took the course. The change in crit i cal think ing abil ity was eval u ated and deter mined based on per for mance in an arti cle cri tique test before and after the course. Data was col lected with an assess ment tool devel oped for the pur poses of the research and was ana lyzed with descrip tive sta tis tics, paired t-test, and two-factor anal y sis of vari ance with repeated mea sures and con tent anal y sis. The find ings were: (1) The scores on the cri tique test at the end of the course in both groups were sig nif i cantly higher than before the course (p < .001). The improve ment in score of the exper i men tal group, how ever, was sig nif i cantly higher than that of the con trol group (p < .001).(2) Changes in think ing pat tern and learn ing atti tude, as well as a feel ing of growth and achieve ment, were found in con tent anal y sis of stu dents' self-evaluation of their learn ing expe ri ence and per cep tion. Crit i cal think ing skills were applied while learn ing the course. The results not only pro vide evi dence to sup port the pos i tive effect of read ing and writ ing assign ments on crit i cal think ing abil ity but also con firm the teach ing and learn ing activ ity design for the course.Key Words: crit i cal think ing, read ing and writ ing, teach ing and learn ing, nurs ing ed u ca tion, case re port.

Developing and Testing of a Software Prototype to Support Diagnostic Reasoning of Nursing Students

“…There are several advantages to e‐learning methods, such as our nursing diagnostic reasoning software, when compared to traditional nursing instruction that focuses on text reading and clinical practice with real patients. The design of a low‐cost training intervention makes it possible to restrict the content complexity, elucidate the diagnostic process (Lunney, ), and assist the student to generate reasonable hypotheses under safe conditions with decreased risk to patients (Chen & Lin, ).…”

Factors Associated with Critical Thinking Abilities in Psychotherapists

“…Factors that have the potential to improve evidence-based practices in psychotherapy are important, because research increasingly suggests that the use of such practices improves clinical outcomes compared with usual care (Cukrowicz, et al, 2005;Wade, Treat, & Stuart, 1998). Although research shows that critical thinking skills can be trained in nurses (Chen & Lin, 2003) and has a positive relationship with nursing skills (Gonzalez, 1996), much less research has been conducted on the critical thinking abilities of mental health professionals. Research shows that psychotherapists often do not use evidencebased treatments (Becker, Zayfert, & Anderson, 2004;Chambless & Ollendick, 2001;Sanderson, 2002), and a significant proportion use treatment techniques that lack scientific validity and credibility (Pignotti & Thyer, 2009;Sharp, Herbert, & Redding, 2008).…”

Развитие Критического Мышления В Современном Российском Обществе: Что Дает Университет?

“…Развитию критического мышления способствуют обучающие стратегии, требую щие от студентов умения анализировать, синтезировать и оценивать информацию, необходимую для решения поставленной перед ними задачи, с целью последующего принятия решения [размышления], а не просто повторения заученной информации [запоминания] [Snyder, Snyder, 2008]. Все перечисленные условия возможно реа лизовать при вовлечении студентов в проектную деятельность, как групповую (см., например, Fung, Howe, 2012]), так и индивидуальную [Chen, Lin, 2003], с последую щей защитой результатов в форме выступления с презентацией [Astin, 1993;Tsui, 1999]. В ходе проектной деятельности студенты изучают материал, учатся понимать или решать задачи самостоятельно, экспериментируя, оценивая возможные ответы методом проб и ошибок [Snyder, Snyder, 2008].…”