The Effect of Clinical Concept Mapping on Discipline Based Critical Thinking of Nursing Students

Enhancing nursing students'' critical thinking is a challenge faced by nursing educators. This study is aimed at determining the effect of clinical concept mapping using nursing process on discipline based critical thinking of 4th year nursing students. In this quasi-experimental study، a convenient sample of 32 nursing students participated. They were randomly assigned to two groups. The control group was involved just in the usual clinical practice، while the experimental group participated in a one day workshop on clinical concept mapping using nursing process during their usual clinical practice. They were also asked to provide at least two clinical concept maps during their clinical practice. On the 10th week of their clinical practice a post-test was done using a specially designed package consisting of fourteen vignettes and three open response opportunity for measurement of seventeen dimensions of critical thinking in nursing (under two categories of cognitive critical thinking skills and mind habits). Students of both groups were required to write about how they would use a designated critical thinking habit or skill to act in a certain way. The students'' responses were evaluated by two raters based on identification of critical thinking، justification and quality (appropriateness of the responses with regard to their level of education) of the student''s response. The mean scores of both groups were compared by Mann-Whitney test. Result of the study revealed a significant difference (p<0. 001) between the two groups'' cognitive critical thinking scores: Experimental group mean score (20. 14±13. 62) vs the control group mean score (6. 41± 6. 52). The results also revealed a significant difference (p<0. 005) in the scores of mind habits: Experimental group mean score (23. 68±20. 58) vs the control group mean score (6. 30± 5. 51). Two groups of study were also significantly different from each other in 11 out of 17 dimensions of critical thinking (p<. 01). Teaching and application of clinical concept mapping leads to improvement of critical thinking abilities in nursing students. However، further studies are recommended to generalize this result to nursing students in their earlier stage of education.