Background and Research Question: Critical thinking instruments that measure skills and dispositions do not appear to capture cognitive changes that occur during the senior year of nursing school. Yet, nursing faculty are very aware that a significant cognitive synthesis of content knowledge and clinical practice takes place. This development has been studied in the form of expert practice (Benner, 1994), yet its manifestation and assessment in the senior nursing student remains elusive. This study employs grounded theory methodology to revisit student nursing judgment development as evidenced in student discussions of nursing care, and to explore its relationship with current cognitive development and judgment development theories.
Related Literature: Recent reviews of the available CT assessment instruments indicate that these may not be capturing the synthesis and development that occur during the senior year (Adams, 1999; Gordon, 2000; May et al, 1999). Concurrently, research on judgment development in college students has yielded alternative perspectives of student judgment development (King & Kitchener, 1994; Perry, 1981) Specifically, how the student perceives knowledge and the evidence supporting it are described.
Methods: Data were gathered from Non-RN senior nursing students through audio taping during clinical conference and classroom discussions. About 46 students participated resulting in approximately 40 hours of discussions that were transcribed. Each student's comments were individually identified and clustered for analysis. Open coding results were compared with results from a coding scheme developed from various judgment development theories.
Results: Preliminary results will be presented.
Implications: An alternative definition for nursing student judgment development will be offered. This in turn will guide further research that may lead to the improved teaching and assessment of nursing judgment. In addition, findings will guide further research in how nurses perceive knowledge and how evidence based practice (EBP) is applied in nursing.
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