Obstacles in the Facilitation of Critical Thinking in Nursing Students in Jeddah - Dissertation Example

Critical thinking has, therefore, been recommended as a professional practice for nursing profession. Nursing students need to be trained and exposed adequately to the critical thinking process as part of nursing syllabi and pedagogy. A literature review of the works in the area of critical thinking has thrown up many isssues.This paper examines: what Is critical thinking; critical thinking as needed in nursing profession; strategies to facilitate critical thinking; techniques that can be used by teachers to help the students identify and challenge their assumptions and barriers to critical thinking.

This paper aso seeks to address the various obstacles to critical thinking process being faced by a population of nursing profession students at King Abul Aziz University in Jeddah. This is done by triangulation method deploying the quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis of the collected data. Quantitative data has been collected via a structured questionnaire administered to nursing students and qualitative data is collected from smaller subgroups of both nursing students and faculty.

The results of the analyses are used to form findings and recommendations.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSINTRODUCTION Enhancing critical thinking amongst student nurses is a common concern of nursing education. At least one previous study is known which ventured into probing the strategies to overcome obstacles in the facilitation of critical thinking in nursing education (Mangena & Chabeli, 2005). The findings of this study indicated that there is a need for nurse educators to model critical thinking in all aspects of nursing education.

Recommendations suggested an entire paradigm shift in. As the report declares critical thinking has been variedly defined as a perceptive process involving reflective, disciplined, rigorous, sequenced and structured thinking which is based on well defined intellectual tenets and which differs from common thinking process. Critical thinking is structured collation of thoughts, ideas and patterns leading to sharper conclusions and analytical abilities. Nursing profession presents innumerable situations where substantial inputs of critical thinking can make substantial differences to the outcomes.

The findings of this study indicated that there is a need for nurse educators to model critical thinking in all aspects of nursing education. Recommendations suggested an entire paradigm shift in nursing education from the traditional teacher-centered methods to a more learner-centered approach that will facilitate critical thinking of student nurses. Drawing from this study this research project would test the hypothesis that a paradigm shift in nursing education from the traditional teacher-centered methods to a more learner-centered approach would facilitate critical thinking of student nurses.

This would be achieved by investigation and determination of the obstacles in the facilitation of critical thinking in fourth year nursing students in Jeddah by exploring the perceptions of nurse educators and nursing students. This study will benefit the nursing students, nurse educators, and the academic institution by raising their awareness of an important issue in nursing education that requires further recognition.