Study On Culturing Critical Thinking Ability For Undergraduate Nursing Students In Clinical Practice

Background:Critical thinking is the personal analysis,evaluation, consequence,explanation and judgement to the character,value and authenticity,accuracy of knowledge,and based on that to make a reasonable decision.The development of modern nursing theory and practice request that nurses should judge,make decisions and carry out decisions independently in clinical practice,which ask for critical thinking ability for nurses.Nowadays,as an important component of the nurses' clinical ability,critical thinking has been a core ability to be fostered in nursing students and a hot research spot for international nursing education and research.Clinical parctice(including clinical probation and clinical exercitation)is an important phase in nursing education and the cradle for culturing the undergraduate nursing students' critical thinking ability.In the study of professional nursing curriculums,undergraduate nursing students undergo clinical prabation,in which thay can get access to real nursing clinical environment and experience combination of theories and practice.So clinical probation serves as a significant role to bridge between theoretical teaching and clinical practice,thus is also the earlist phase to culture the undergraduate nursing students' critical thinking ability in clinical environment.Objective:To study the critical thinking ability of undergraduate nursing students in different grades and at different levels,and based on that to reform the clinical probation modes so as to improve the critical thinking ability for undergraduate nursing students.Methods:①The Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory-Chinese Vision (CTDI-CV)was used to investigate 383 undergraduate nursing students from Nantong University who were classified into 3 grades and 2 levels.②In clinical probation of gynecology and obstetrics nursing and pediatric nursing,77 students were divided into two groups(experimental group and control group),which were trained by using different methods.In clinical probation of medical nursing and surgical nursing,168 students were divided into three groups(two experimental groups and one control group),which were trained by using different methods.All students were investigated by CTDI-CV before and after the clinical probation.At the same time,all students' scores of case study and evaluation to the clinical probation were compared.Results:①Total scores of critical thinking ability of all students were 290.52±24.28.Except truth-seeking,systematicity and self-confidence of critical-thinking,the scores of other aspects were all above 40.②Scores of every aspect from different grades and different levels indicated statistically significant differences.The scores also indicated that nursing education has influences on the critical thinking state to some extent.③There was no significant difference between the average CTDI-CV scores of experimental groups and control group before clinical probation. The average CTDI-CV scores of experimental groups were significantly higher than control group after clinical probation.Moreover,the CTDI-CV scores of experimental groups after clinical probation were significantly higher than that before clinical probation.The different scores of case study and evaluation to the clinical probation mode of the these groups was displayed too.Conclusion:①The critical thinking ability of undergraduate nursing students in our country at present represents positive tendency,which indicates that higher nursing education brings into play in culturing of critical thinking.But the undergraduate nursing students in our country are deficient in the ability of truth-seeking and systemalicity,and their self-confidence of critical thinking,which indicates shortage in the existing nursing education to some extent that had not promoted the undergraduate nursing students' ability in these three aspects.②The critical thinking ability has a close relationship with grades and levels of undergraduate nursing students.③In nursing clinical practice,the reformed clinical probation mode can improve the ability of critical thinking of undergraduate nursing students.