This article is focuses on an educational programme to facilitate critical thinking within the nursing perspective. For the purpose of developing an educational programme; the study was conducted in four phases, beginning with a needs assessment in Phase 1 through which the researcher determined the need of student nurses in terms of critical thinking. The deductive data analysis of phase 1 served as conceptual framework for the development of education programme in phase 2. Phase 2 consisted of the development of educational framework to facilitate critical thinking in student nurses. Specific educational approaches and a philosophical framework were employed during the development of the programme. An expert opinion on the programme was obtained before the implementation could be concluded in phase 3. Phase 3 and 3 of the study were conducted simultaneously. Phase 3 covered the implementation of the educational programme and Phase 4 the evaluation. The process itself includes, the purpose of the development of the programme, conducting a situational analysis; utilization of philosophical approaches, developing the educational programme; content of the programme; educational and curriculum approaches integrated into the development of an educational programme and strategies to overcome obstacles during the implementation of an educational programme.

This study involved a quantitative, quasi-experimental and contextual design. The target population for this phase was senior student nurses registered at the University of Namibia, in their fourth year of nursing studies in the training hospitals of Windhoek and Oshakati. A total of 46 fourth-year nursing students, registered at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences in the Department of Nursing, were included for phase 1 except for the two students who took part in the pilot study. The students were from both campuses, namely the Windhoek and Oshakati campuses, doing the four-year Diploma in Comprehensive Nursing curriculum, which incorporates the principles of critical thinking. An imaginary case scenario was developed for students to analyse and answer some relevant questions to enable the researcher to determine the level of understanding and integration of critical thinking. In this study each student's answers were deductively analysed by calculating central values, more specifically the mean for each question, to determine their application of critical thinking skills in the management of a nursing problem The researcher has, with literature support, arrived at "umbrella" concepts, namely the most important concepts that nurses in Namibia need and without which they cannot practice. These umbrella concepts are to be included in the educational programme.

The article focused on the development process of an educational programme to facilitate the development of critical thinking in the students. The study was conducted in four phases, beginning with the needs assessment in phase 1 through which the researcher determine the need of the students in terms of critical thinking. The deductive data analysis of phase 1 served as basis of the conceptual framework for the development of an educational programme. Phase 2 focused on the development of the conceptual framework and it was achieved by utilized a specific educational approaches and philosophical framework were employed. Phase 3 and 4 were conducted simultaneously. Phase 3 focuses on implementation while phase 4 focuses on evaluation. A quasi -experimental design was implemented which focused on active participation by the participants in the programme.

The purpose of this article is to present the conceptualise empirical findings arrived at from the needs assessment (phase 1), which reflected the application of critical thinking skills by the respondents. The ultimate aim was to develop an educational programme to facilitate critical thinking in nursing practice. Conceptualization as the definition of key concepts in a study with a view to integrating one's research into conceptual frameworks. The findings revealed six main concepts and their related sub-concepts. These concepts included interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation and self-regulation. These concepts were inferred from the deduction by the researcher. These concepts were the results of the concept analysis of critical thinking by 46 experts directed by Facione together with the related dispositions. These six main concepts constituted the framework within which the educational programme was developed. The following steps were followed during the conceptualization namely concepts synthesis, clarification of the concepts, interpretation of the concepts, analysis of the concepts, evaluation of the concepts, interference/ conclusion, explanation, self -regulation and critical approaches.