Enhancing critical thinking skills and dispositions of nurse managers may help to create positive work environments for staff RNs. Staff RNs who work in an environment perceived to be positive may be in a better position to deliver high quality, safe patient care.
Critical thinking (CT) is considered to be foundational for the development of RN clinical reasoning. Reflective journaling has been used as an educational strategy to support the development of CT. This project's purpose was to explore how using reflective journaling about CT dispositions with RNs in a fellowship program might influence RN's use of CT dispositions. This descriptive, qualitative study used content analysis as the method to analyze journal entries focused on seven CT dispositions: inquisitiveness, systematicity, open mindedness, analyticity, truth seeking, CT maturity, and CT confidence written by RNs in the first 7 weeks of their fellowship program. Based on the content analysis of journal entries, two major descriptive themes emerged: Development of Critical Thinking Is a Process That Develops During a Period of Time, and Purposefully Engaging Critical Thinking Dispositions May Help Prevent Negative Patient Outcomes. The purposeful use of CT dispositions as described in the journal entries also helped to guide the RN's individual learning. J Contin Educ Nurs. 2016;47(7):321-329.
Critical thinking dispositions are a combination of attitudes, values, and beliefs that make up one's personality based on life experience. Lack of statistical significance using a quantitative approach did not capture the development of the critical thinking dispositions of participants. A secondary qualitative analysis of journal entries is being conducted.
Background and objective: Research with Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL), an interactive learning pedagogy, has shown improvement in grades and student satisfaction in science and nursing courses. POGIL is an active teaching strategy which utilizes small groups of students to analyze case studies. The student teams participate in groups of four to problem solve topics based on the material taught. POGIL can be additional to lecture and didactic teaching methods to help with the synthesis and analysis of content taught. The object of this study was to compare final course and national standardized exam grades between POGIL and comparison groups in both Fundamentals and Medical-Surgical II nursing courses. Methods: A quantitative, comparative design was used. Results: The Fundamentals POGIL group had significantly higher scores on a standardized national exam (p = .001) than a comparison group; no significant difference in final course grades was found. The Medical-Surgical Nursing II POGIL and comparison groups had no significant differences in standardized national exam or final course grades. Students in POGIL groups were given a satisfaction survey and indicated the experience was helpful to improving grades and understanding course content. Conclusions: In classes that used POGIL, there were higher scores on a standardized national exam scores but not final course grades for students in the Fundamentals course. Using POGIL in Medical Surgical Nursing II courses revealed no difference in final course grades or on national standardized exam scores. The use of POGIL for beginning nursing students may be more helpful as these students are in the process of determining which learning strategies are most helpful as they progress through the nursing curriculum. Introducing a new pedagogy to students in their last semester of the nursing program was not as helpful possibly because students have established successful strategies for learning prior to this last semester. Future research to further explore the impact of POGIL on grades and standardized tests scores in other nursing curriculum courses such as mental health or care of the emerging family is recommended. Exploring POGIL and the impact on the development of clinical thinking and clinical practice is another line of inquiry that could be explored.
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