Evaluation of Nursing Students, Critical Thinking Skills in Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences

Critical thinking skill is one of the important goals of nursing education and its promotion is considered as one of the expected outcomes of university studies. Regarding the importance of critical thinking upon improvement of nursing quality, this research was designed with the aim of evaluation of critical thinking abilities in nursing students. This descriptive analytical study was conducted on all nursing students of Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery in Amol, affiliated to Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. The samples were selected by census method of all students studying in the first semester of academic year 2011-12. The research instruments used in critical thinking skills test were Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (A) consisting 80 questions and 5 subscales: inference, recognition of assumptions, deduction, interpretation, and evaluation of arguments skills. After collecting the data, they were entered into computer and analyzed by the SPSS 16 software using descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation coefficient and Mann Whitney Test, with significance level set at 0.05. The Mean score of critical thinking of nursing students’ was 44.38±5.60. From 5 evaluated subscales, the highest and lowest abilities of students were in recognition of assumptions (10.82±2.46)and deduction(5.97±2.1). Research findings show that nursing student's critical skills are weak despite the importance of critical thinking in nursing activities,therefore using special strategies to improve critical thinking skills is emphasized.