The Effect of Reflective Writing Interventions on Critical Thinking Skills and Dispositions of Baccalaureate Nursing Students

Naber, Jessica L.

Saturday, 29 October 2011

Jessica L. Naber, RN, MSN, PhD
School of Nursing, Murray State University, Murray, KY

Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to understand a reflective writing intervention and its effect on critical thinking skills and dispositions in baccalaureate degree nursing students.

Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to understand the use of Paul's Model of Critical Thinking in developing and implementing a reflective writing intervention.

The purpose of this presentation is to describe the effect of a novel reflective writing intervention, based on Paul’s model of critical thinking, on critical thinking skills and dispositions in baccalaureate degree nursing students over the period of an eight-week clinical rotation. The hypothesis is that baccalaureate nursing students’ scores on the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) and the California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory (CCTDI) will increase following an eight-week reflective writing intervention when compared to the no-intervention control group when controlling for health care experience. In order to be safe, competent practitioners, nurses must be able to think critically. Nursing students who are taught critical thinking skills are more likely to pass the NCLEX-RN and fill nursing positions. Currently, there is very little empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of reflective writing interventions on critical thinking skills and disposition.

The design for this large pilot study will be experimental, and more specifically, a level III pretest-posttest design. There will be an experimental group and a control group, each of which will be part of an adult health class consisting of second-semester junior baccalaureate nursing students at two four-year universities in Tennessee. Two pre-tests will be administered to both groups: the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) and the California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory (CCTDI). Then, the intervention, consisting of six reflective writing assignments developed by the researcher using Paul’s model, will be implemented throughout the first half of the semester in the experimental group. Students will be emailed one reflective writing assignment every one to two weeks, and the researcher will provide meaningful feedback on each assignment. After the interventions and the adult health clinicals are completed, the post-test CCTST and CCTDI will be administered. Data will be analyzed using ANCOVA, with health care experience being analyzed as a covariate.

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