Paper
Thursday, July 22, 2004
9:30 AM - 10:00 AM
Thursday, July 22, 2004
2:30 PM - 3:00 PM
Fostering Critical-Thinking Abilities and Their Effectiveness -- An RN-BSN Program in Taiwan
Sheila Sheu, PhD, Vice president & Dean of Academic Affairs, Vice president & Dean of Academic Affairs, Fooyin University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
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Helping students acquire the ability to think critically is one of the major focuses of nursing education today.The purpose of this study was to design courses for fostering critical thinking abilities in RN-BSN students at a nursing school in southern Taiwan and evaluate its effectiveness. The framework and content of core courses "Nursing I", "Nursing II", and "Nursing III" were restructured aiming to promote critical thinking ability. Teaching about critical thinking and how to think critically were emphasized during classroom and clinical practice. The essence, dispositions and skills of critical thinking were practiced by simulated case studies and case conferences. A total of 52 nursing students were enrolled in this study. The Equivalent Time Sample Design and the Equivalent Material Sample Design were used to evaluate the effectiveness of such teaching. The Chinese version of Watson°¦s Critical Thinking Appraisal was also utilized. This instrument comprises five factors: inference, assumption, induction, explanation, and evaluation. The data were collected after the end of each of the three nursing courses. Our main findings were as follows : (1) Total CT ability before taking the course was fair (M = 38.71) but below the norm in Taiwan. Critical thinking in deduction was the best (M = 8.69) while that in inference was the worst (M = 4.83 ). (2) The most significant improvement occurred after °µNursing I°¨ and °µNursing II°¨ for interpretation ability(t =4.05, p <.001 ; t =4.01,p <.001 ), and after °µNursing III°¨ for inference ability(t =3.90, p <.001). (3) At the end of these courses, students°¦ total CT ability increased significantly (t = 4.58, 4.88, 4.00, P< .001). Moreover, students°¦ ability of inference, deduction, and interpretation reached the norm in Taiwan. The results of this study support that the designed course can effectively help nurse educators foster critical thinking abilities in RN-BSN students
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July 22-24, 2004