Improvement of nursing students' critical thinking skills through problem‐based learning in the People's Republic of China: A quasi‐experimental study

Abstract

A quasi-experimental, two-group pretest-post-test design was conducted to examine the effect of problem-based learning on the critical thinking skills of 46 Year 2 undergraduate nursing students in the People's Republic of China. The California Critical Thinking Skills Test Form A, Chinese-Taiwanese version was used as both a pretest and as a post-test for a semester-long nursing course. There was no significant difference in critical thinking skills at pretest, whereas, significant differences in critical thinking skills existed between the problem-based learning and lecture groups at post-test. The problem-based learning students had a significantly greater improvement on the overall California Critical Thinking Skills Test, analysis, and induction subscale scores compared with the lecture students. Problem-based learning fostered nursing students' critical thinking skills.

Critical thinking skills profile of high school students in learning chemistry

“…Teaching problem-based learning is an effective learning strategy which encourages the students by strengthening critical thinking for attainment of the skill to solve problems. Problem solving is considered as a mental activity that leads to the acquirement of new knowledge and skills [23].…”

Postgraduate nursing students' acquire skills upon applying problem based learning

“…Learning process will be more effective when instructors take the role of facilitator, coach and mentor to guide students during the problem solving process in state of teach and provide the answer to the problem. Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in the student centered classroom gives students the chance to learn best and to discover knowledge in a meaningful and applicable way (3) . Moreover, Smith-Goodwin, and Jeffrey (4) reported that PBL, provide students with learning opportunities for ''how to think'' rather than ''what to think,'' and potentially within the framework of sustainability.…”

Stimulating pre-service teacher academic achievement through problembased learning (PBL)

“…Many studies have supported the effectiveness of the PBL approach on students' academic achievement (Major and Palmer, 2012;Neo and Neo, 2001;Ward and Lee, 2002;Kivela and Kivela, 2005;Yuan et al, 2008). However, these studies are mainly in the field of science and technology, especially in the fields of medicine, nursing, the sciences, hospitality and engineering.…”

“…Tan and Ng (2006) stated that PBL is useful for its emphasis of active learning through solving 'real-world' problems as well as its multi solution approach; it is likely to have an advantage if positioned as a pedagogical strategy for entrepreneurship education. Yuan et al (2008) stated that PBL approach, in the context of nursing education, actually increased students CT skill more than the lecture approach. They also examined the effect of PBL on nursing students' CT skills.…”