Objective Measurement of Critical-Thinking Ability in Registered Nurse Applicants

Abstract

This first part of a 2-phase study examined the relationship between general pediatric nursing knowledge, critical thinking (CT) ability of newly hired nurse, as determined by a custom Health Education System Inc exam and the length of orientation necessary to meet the required clinical competencies. A descriptive correlational study design was used to administer the customized computer-based examination to 98 nurses at the beginning of employment at a large pediatric healthcare organization. The examination results were statistically significant in the determination of CT ability and a correlation to the ability to provide clinically competent patient care. The custom examination provided an objective measurement of CT ability in the nurse's specific domain of knowledge.

Critical thinking: A comparative analysis between nurse managers and registered nurses

“…In this study, age was associated with a higher level of critical thinking among nurse managers. However, the reports in the literature of associations between age and critical thinking skills in students and nurses are contradictory (Atay & Karabacak, ; Ryan & Tatum, ; Shinnick et al., ). Factors such as care experience, an element which is linked to critical thinking and which Benner () included a few decades ago in her advanced practice model, was not associated with an improvement in the level of nurse managers’ critical thinking in our study.…”

Factors associated with the critical thinking ability of professional nurses: A cross‐sectional study

“…Previous studies have also found that several personal‐related factors are associated with the nurses' critical thinking ability, which are age, gender, ethnicity, education qualification, working experience and shift work (Chang et al., 2011; Feng et al., 2010; Howenstein et al., 1996; Lang et al., 2013; Ludin, 2018; Mahmoud & Mohamed, 2017; Ryan & Tatum, 2012; Wangensteen et al., 2010; Yildirim et al., 2012; Yurdanur, 2016; Zuriguel‐Pérez et al, 2018). However, the relationships between the critical thinking ability and these variables are inconsistent.…”

Development and Validation of a Critical Thinking Assessment-Scale Short Form

“…One approach uses resources such as different types of measuring instruments, either the formal or standardized CrT tests (such as the CCTT-Cornell Critical Thinking Test; the California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory-CCTDI; or the Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment test-HCTA, among others) [8], or the self-reported students' or stakeholders' perceptions [8]. The other approach uses "objective measurements" or "performance assessment", which are based on the transferability of skills to new work-based, professional-driven situations (e.g., the PBDS-Performance-Based Development System Test for nursing [19], the OSCE-Objective Structured Clinical Examination for clinical subjects [20], or the iPAL-Performance Assessment of Learning for engineering [11]). The performance assessment combines different dimensions of technical and soft-competencies evaluation.…”