A key component of nursing practice is the nurse's ability to process information and to make decisions. One goal of most educational programs for nurses is to enhance students' cognitive abilities and clinical decision-making skills. This study investigated the differences in critical thinking ability and decision-making skills among 121 associate degree, diploma, baccalaureate, and masterfcprepared nurses. Results indicated that nurses with master's and baccalaureate degrees had the highest scores in critical thinking ability. Subjects' decision-making skills were measured related to: 1) frequency in making decisions, 2) difficulty in making decisions, and 3) factors which influence decision making. No significant differences were found among the four groups related to the three dimensions of decision-making skills. Experience and knowledge were the most influential factors in decision making. Study findings have implications for investigating differences among nursing students related to cognitive abilities.

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Summary Professional nurses today have an ever‐expanding arena for professional practice and for contributing to the resolution of the health care delivery crisis in our nation. Such pressing issues as reducing health care costs, third party payment for nurses, an expanded nursing practice act, increasing primary health care by nurses, and generally increasing the quality of health care provided must be addressed. Nurses must continuously translate their professional potential into action to become more powerful as individuals and as a group. In 1979 many politicians have little awareness of the “nurse vote”; however, the “teacher vote” is one that is respected and courted. If the majority of the current registered nurses in the nation could coalesce into an identifiable interest group, the political impact could be exhilarating. However, individual nurses must grow into feeling powerful as individuals before they can actively and persistently work toward power as a group. If they feel powerless as individuals, they will quickly become disheartened when the power of the group is threatened. Each individual nurse should work to improve her own situation, and not passively wait the vicissitudes of life. Factors which serve to thwart her in this effort are professional ambivalence, dichotomized thinking, scapegoating, negative assumptions, and the rigid ruts‐no risks syndrome. Factors which serve to enhance her in this effort are a clear personal and professional sense of identity, a high degree of critical thinking ability, assuming responsibility for one's own actions, intellectual re‐fertilization, and being willing to be a risk‐taker. As a philosopher once said, “we might feel some sympathy for the one who tried and failed, but only pity for the one who never even tried.”

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