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PubMedDate not supplied

Use of the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal with BSN students.

The complexity and changing nature of nursing today requires proficiency in thinking skills to ensure knowledgeable, confident, creative, and sensitive decisions regarding client care. Nurse educators are faced with the task of promoting educational strategies to develop the abilities of nursing students to think critically in all health care settings (1). However, a lack of consensus on what characterizes critical thinking leads to difficulty in the development of instruments for adequate measurement. It is important to decide on a definition of critical thinking that faculty support and are willing to use in practice. The term is diversely defined in the literature. For example, Alfaro-LeFevre states that critical thinking in nursing "entails purposeful, goal directed thinking; aims to make judgments based on evidence (fact) rather than conjecture (guesswork); is based on principles of science and scientific method; requires strategies that maximize human potential and compensate for problems caused by human nature" (2). The authors of this study use a definition by Paul: "thinking about your thinking while you are thinking in order to make your thinking better, more clear, more accurate, more defensible" (3). The authors believe that the development and/or enhancement of critical thinking ability must be the result of conscious, deliberate activity throughout the nursing program. As the student matures, the ability to think critically will be manifested in decision making that reflects accurate assessment and resolution of problems. The nursing faculty selected an instrument to evaluate the critical thinking abilities of baccalaureate nursing students that had strong reliability and validity documented in the nursing literature: the total and subtest scores of the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA), Form A (4). The instrument was deemed to be congruent with the definition of critical thinking supported by the faculty.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Critical thinking skills and dispositions of baccalaureate nursing students--a conceptual model for evaluation.

To date, little has been written on specifically what critical thinking is and what the scores reported on critical thinking instruments actually represent. This lack of specificity provided the impetus to examine critical thinking skills and dispositions of baccalaureate nursing students, to ascertain whether or not a significant difference exists between academic levels, and to ascertain, using the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) and the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI), whether a relationship exists between nursing students' critical thinking skills and their critical thinking dispositions. The conceptualization of critical thinking consisting of two dimensions, cognitive skills and affective dispositions, developed by a panel of experts comprised the conceptual framework for this study. A cross-sectional, descriptive, comparative, and correlational study was undertaken in which two instruments, CCTST, Form A, and the CCTDI were administered to a convenience sample of nursing students representing five academic levels. The sample in the statistical analyses comprised 328 students. Results indicated that the total critical thinking mean score for students at each level reflected percentile ranking ranging between 48 and 65 per cent. The mean score for the critical thinking subscale, inference, had the lowest percentile rankings, ranging between 37 and 55 per cent. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) statistical analysis indicated that students at the junior I level had the highest critical thinking mean scores, and students at the sophomore II level attained the lowest scores, reflecting a significant difference (P < or = .05). ANOVA also indicated a significant difference in the total critical thinking disposition mean scores between students at the junior I and senior I and II levels and those at the sophomore II level (P < or = .0000). Results indicated weak truth-seeking disposition scores among students at all levels. Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient yielded a significant positive relationship between critical thinking skills and critical thinking dispositions (P < or = .01). The conceptual model, as well as its relevancy to the professional standards of Essentials for College and University Education for Professional Nursing (AACN, 1986), is presented. Recommendations are discussed in regard to nursing education, curriculum, and research.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed1985

Localization of cortical areas activated by thinking.

These experiments were undertaken to demonstrate that pure mental activity, thinking, increases the cerebral blood flow and that different types of thinking increase the regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in different cortical areas. As a first approach, thinking was defined as brain work in the form of operations on internal information, done by an awake subject. The rCBF was measured in 254 cortical regions in 11 subjects with the intracarotid 133Xe injection technique. In normal man, changes in the regional cortical metabolic rate of O2 leads to proportional changes in rCBF. One control study was taken with the subjects at rest. Then the rCBF was measured during three different simple algorithm tasks, each consisting of retrieval of a specific memory followed by a simple operation on the retrieved information. Once started, the information processing went on in the brain without any communication with the outside world. In 50-3 thinking, the subjects started with 50 and then, in their minds only, continuously subtracted 3 from the result. In jingle thinking the subjects internally jumped every second word in a nine-word circular jingle. In route-finding thinking the subjects imagined that they started at their front door and then walked alternatively to the left or the right each time they reached a corner. The rCBF increased only in homotypical cortical areas during thinking. The areas in the superior prefrontal cortex increased their rCBF equivalently during the three types of thinking. In the remaining parts of the prefrontal cortex there were multifocal increases of rCBF. The localizations and intensities of these rCBF increases depended on the type of internal operation occurring. The rCBF increased bilaterally in the angular cortex during 50-3 thinking. The rCBF increased in the right midtemporal cortex exclusively during jingle thinking. The intermediate and remote visual association areas, the superior occipital, posterior inferior temporal, and posterior superior parietal cortex, increased their rCBF exclusively during route-finding thinking. We observed no decreases in rCBF. All rCBF increases extended over a few square centimeters of the cortex. The activation of the superior prefrontal cortex was attributed to the organization of thinking. The activation of the angular cortex in 50-3 thinking was attributed to the retrieval of the numerical memory and memory for subtractions. The activation of the right midtemporal cortex was attributed to the retrieval of the nonverbal auditory memory.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Brain Mapping↗
PubMed1991

[Inhibited thinking as normal psychological phenomena].

Inhibited thinking as a normal psychological phenomenon has to be distinguished from psychopathologically defined thinking disorders. Normal psychological inhibitions of thinking can be subdivided into affect-induced inhibitions ("affective inhibitions of thinking") and those caused by habituated thinking or sets ("habitual inhibitions"). In affective inhibitions of thinking, a person who is in a state of affective arousal cannot solve a problem which he usually, i.e. in view of his intellectual capacity, is able to solve. Both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of inhibited thinking can be reliably identified by means of rearrangement tasks administered under adequate situative conditions. In several studies, carried out in various groups of subjects, marked decreases in problem solving performance occurred as a consequence of affective inhibitions of thinking. Disorganized thinking which is a typical result of affective inhibitions of thinking, can either be manifested in form of extremely rigid or chaotic behaviour. First results on the individual tendency towards or proneness to affective inhibitions of thinking and their relationship to personality traits are presented. --Based upon these findings on inhibited thinking, general conclusions are drawn for both the psychology of thinking and psychological diagnostics.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Thinking.

This paper argues that thinking is assumed within nursing education. There are strategies to promote thinking: reflective practice, critical analysis and problem solving. I suggest that by categorising thinking into such boxes there may be a danger of limiting the rich possibilities of simply 'thinking'. The writings of Heidegger (1889-1976) are cited, highlighting the need to 'call' thinking, and to meditate or ponder on the things that matter. The paper comes from research that asked the question 'What calls for thinking in postgraduate education?' Findings reveal examples of teachers and students recalling 'thinking experiences' but also suggest there is a danger that students do not have time to think in a busy classroom situation. It appears that thinking is more likely to happen outside of the classroom, with peers, in assignment writing, or when thoughts simply come. The challenge to nursing education is that not only may teachers be limiting students thinking opportunities, but they may be directing thinking in a way that maintains the status quo. If nursing is to equip itself as a dynamic profession and take initiative for shaping its own future, then close attention must be paid to enabling thinking.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Cultivating interpretive thinking through enacting narrative pedagogy.

Teachers and educational researchers in nursing have persisted in their attempts to teach students critical thinking and to evaluate the effectiveness of these efforts. Yet, despite the plethora of studies investigating critical thinking, there is a paucity of research providing evidence that teachers' efforts improve students' thinking. The purpose of this interpretive phenomenological study is to explicate how students' thinking can be extended when teachers use Narrative Pedagogy. Specifically, the theme Cultivating Interpretive Thinking refers to how teachers' use of Narrative Pedagogy moves beyond the critical thinking movement's emphasis on analytical thinking (i.e., problem solving). Cultivating Interpretive Thinking offers an innovative approach for teaching and learning thinking that attends to students' embodied, reflective, and pluralistic thinking experiences. Teachers who cultivate interpretive thinking add complexity to students' thinking to better prepare them for challenging, complex, and unpredictable clinical environments.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Relationships between critical thinking dispositions and learning styles.

A mutually inclusive model directing the development of critical thinking includes facilitating critical thinking dispositions or affective attributes of individuals as well as their critical thinking skills. This inclusion takes into account personal and subjective ways of making meaning as part of the conceptualization of critical thinking. There is a gap in understanding the disposition dimensions of critical thinking among professional nursing students and how they may relate with other behavioral aspects. Many baccalaureate programs have been found to define and/or measure critical thinking as primarily cognitive in nature. Guided by this crucial omission of knowledge regarding critical thinking dispositions, this study addressed the following research questions: (1) What are the critical thinking dispositions and learning styles of baccalaureate nursing students? and (2) Are there correlations between critical thinking dispositions and learning modes? A descriptive, correlational study was conducted in which the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory and Kolb's Learning Style Inventory were administered to two convenience groups of senior-level nursing students (n = 100). Low critical thinking self-confidence mean scores for both groups were found. Other disposition scores that reflected weaknesses were analyticity, systematicity, and inquisitiveness. Strong disposition scores are described as are dominant learning styles. The Spearman Rank-Difference Correlation measurement indicated relationships between specific components of critical thinking dispositions and learning modes. Implications for nursing education are presented.

Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate↗
PubMed1985

Some psychological effects associated with positive and negative thinking about stressful event outcomes: was Pollyanna right?

This study investigated psychological effects associated with tendencies to focus one's thinking on positive versus negative outcomes of concluded stressful events, called respectively, positive and negative thinking. Four questions were addressed: (a) whether positive and negative thinking benefit or reduce psychological well-being, (b) whether these effects are transitory or enduring, (c) whether they are limited to thoughts about an event's impact on oneself or generalize to thoughts about an event's external consequences, and (d) whether tendencies to think positively or negatively about prior stressors influence psychological vulnerability to the impact of future ones. College students completed an event-outcome appraisal questionnaire designed to make salient positive and negative thoughts about the outcomes of recent stressful events. Subjects' well-being was then assessed both immediately after the salience manipulation and again 8 weeks later. Positive thinking increased the well-being that subjects reported immediately after their thoughts were assessed, but was unrelated to the well-being they reported after an 8-week delay. This suggests that although thinking positively about past event outcomes may temporarily lead to perceptions of increased well-being while the thoughts are salient, it has no enduring influence. In contrast, negative thinking was associated with lower reported well-being not only when the thoughts were salient but after a delay as well. Psychological effects associated with both types of thinking were due mostly to self-relevant thoughts rather than to externally relevant ones. Negative thinking about prior stressor outcomes appeared to increase vulnerability to the impact of later ones on several aspects of well-being. Overall, results for negative thinking are consistent with evidence reported after an 8-week delay. This suggests that although thinking positively effects that persist over time. However, positive thinking does not seem to have beneficial effects that continue once these thoughts are no longer salient.

Affect↗