Nursing programs are giving emphasis to assessment of the learning outcomes as an indicator for quality education. Critical thinking (CT) is one of these outcomes because it shapes goals of nursing education and practice as it is needed for solving problems and making decisions by creating reasoned judgements in academic and clinical settings. Critical thinking dispositions are benchmarks and guiding indicators of the effectiveness of the educational program, as the National Academic Reference Standards considered the CT as an attribute of nursing graduates. In spite students and educators are in agreement as to why they value critical thinking; they may differ in how they believe it should be taught. One of the determinants of nursing students’ critical thinking is the educational strategies used by educators. Therefore the aim of the current research project is to examine the relationship between nursing graduates’ critical thinking disposition and teaching strategies used during the program.
Methods:
Descriptive cor relational design used. Graduates of the current academic years (2018-2019) of the BSN program in three campuses were included in the study. Graduates were invited to fill questionnaires; Demographics, the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTD), and teaching strategies used during the program and the preferred educational strategies.
Results:
Data collected from all potential subjects from the three campuses were approached to participate (total of 277). Preliminary results shows that majority of the graduates (72.8%) perceived that the program contributed to their critical thinking skills.
Most of the graduates were positive toward their critical thinking abilities. Graduates reported that traditional lectures, written assignments and clinical round were the mostly used teaching strategies during the program. The least often used teaching strategies were Debate , Reflective journal and Role Playing. However, graduates reported their preferred teaching strategies were; written assignments, cooperative learning, portfolio, debate, brain storming and clinical round. CTDS was correlated with group learning, brain storming, clinical rounds, advising and seminars. (r from 0.2 to 0.33 and p from 0.01 to 0.001)
Conclusion:
For nursing graduates to be engaged in complex problem solving, educators need to reconsider the course content, and teaching strategies used to develop students’ critical thinking