Connecting critical thinking, caring, and curiosity in nurse education: Exploring the beliefs and practices of nurse educators

Abstract

A theoretical association exists between caring, critical thinking, and curiosity. We wanted to gain a deeper understanding about how the relationships translated to the perceptions and practices of nurse educators. We developed a survey of selected and free response items to gather a combination of quantitative and qualitative data related to nurse educators’ perceptions and practices related to caring, critical thinking, and curiosity. We distributed an invitation to participate in our online survey research project through direct communication with a sample of nurse educators and posted the request to a handful of nurse educator social media sites and listservs. Forty-six nurse educators fully completed our survey. Findings include a mixture of positive perceptions about learning caring and curiosity, insights about the importance of caring and curiosity in nursing, and practices that included promoting critical thinking and curiosity among nurses. We follow the results with a discussion of implications for nurse education.

Beyond the Books: Teacher Practices and Perceptions of Teaching Caring and Curiosity

“…Thus, we speculate that the teachers embrace a growth mindset perspective when considering students' capacity to learn to be caring. In prior research, we found many post-secondary educators perceive that students cannot be taught to be caring and therefore tended to hold a fixed mindset perspective for students developing their dispositions (Nadelson & Nadelson, 2019). Thus, the relatively high perceptions of the teachers in our present study that believe students can learn to be more caring may reflect a potential difference in perceptions of student disposition based on the developmental level of the students.…”

Fortalezas del carácter y estresores de la práctica clínica como predictores en un modelo lineal del estrés percibido en estudiantes militares de Enfermería

“…Por ejemplo, favorecen la adaptación al ámbito hospitalario, mejoran la atención hacia el paciente y optimizan la conducción de grupos de trabajo. [20][21][22] Con relación al segundo objetivo, los principales factores que incidieron en el estrés percibido de los participantes fueron la sobrecarga de tareas, la gratitud, el amor y la perspectiva. El impacto del predictor sobrecarga de tareas sobre el nivel de estrés percibido subraya la necesidad de modificar la distribución y organización de las múltiples actividades a las que están sometidos los estudiantes de Enfermería Militar, de manera tal que se posibilite el cumplimiento de las mismas al gestionarlas de forma adecuada.…”

Critical thinking as an indispensable component of the Polish nurses’ education process and a necessary condition for the development of nursing

“…They have placed this ability of the teaching staff at one of the highest levels in the ladder of effective methods. Their research shows a direct cause-and-effect relationship between arousing curiosity and developing critical thinking and quality of care [19].…”