Paper
Thursday, July 12, 2007
This presentation is part of : Global Strategies in Nursing Education
Transforming 2nd degree students to nurses: Examining the relationship between professional role development, critical thinking, and nursing performance
Rita D'Aoust, School of Nursing, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA and Larry Simmons, PhD, Educational Resources, Inc, Shawnee Mission, KS, USA.
Learning Objective #1: Analyze the relationship between knowledge construction and active learning strategies on the development of critical thinking skills and nursing performance.
Learning Objective #2: Examine the relationship between professional role development on critical thinking and nursing performance.
Background:
Students in accelerated nursing programs must achieve the same level of knowledge and skills as students in traditional programs. The time frame, however, is abbreviated, typically 12-18 months. In the first year of our program, bright accelerated students did not perform well on NCLEX. The question raised by the faculty was, “How can we assist accelerated students to ‘think and practice like a nurse” in order to achieve higher order thinking skills necessary for NCLEX success?

 The first stage of inquiry examined the relationship between a variety of curriculum measures, student characteristics, and program outcomes. Critical thinking and performance on summative and NCLEX exams emerged as significant relationship. Based on the results of this first stage of inquiry, the second phase examined the relationship of between critical thinking and professional role development on nursing performance.

 Discussion
Analysis of student performance and curriculum review revealed that faculty proficiency in teaching discrete content and skills had not translated into students’ acquisition of higher order thinking skills. Factors contributing to the problem included limited collaborative learning and professional role socialization. Strategies from multiple approaches were identified and implemented. Subsequent summative measures (PreRN, RN Assess) showed s a significant improvement and NCLEX rates consistently ranging from 90-95%. The results demonstrated a significant relationship between critical thinking measures, summative exams and NCLEX performance.

 The Value Added Completion Exam is designed to measure professional role development and was administered at program entrance and exit. These results are discussed in relationship to critical thinking and summative nursing exams.

 Recommendations
The relationship between critical thinking and professional role development is critical for all nursing students, and in particular, accelerated and second degree students,  who must quickly think like a nurse in order to act and care like a nurse.

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See more of The 18th International Nursing Research Congress Focusing on Evidence-Based Practice (11 -- 14 July, 2007)