Fostering critical thinking through nursing skills course

Objective:To evaluate the effect of nursing skills course on critical thinking of nursing undergraduates． Methods:Quasi experiment was used in the study． Nursing students were employed in the experiment and divided into experimental group(n =55，2009 seniors)，control A(n = 56，2009 seniors)，control B(n = 78，2008 junior)． Nursing skills course was used in the experimental group and the control A from September to November total 60 hours． Many kinds of teaching method based on clinical pathway and clinical cases were used in experimental group． Traditional teaching method was used in control A． All the students filled in Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory-Chinese Version before and after the experiment． Results:Compared with total scores of critical thinking before experiment，total scores of critical thinking after experiment showed significant increase(P 0． 01) in experimental group;compared with control groups A and B，experimental group Open-mindedness，Analyticity，Systematicity，Cognitive maturity showed significant increase in the scores(P 0． 05 to P 0． 01)，whereas Truth-seeking，Self-confidence and Inqusitiveness did not． Conclusions:Nursing skills course based on many teaching Methods can improve students' critical thinking ability．