Association of Critical Thinking with Learning Styles in Nursing Students of School of Nursing and Midwifery, Iran

The lack of critical thinking among students indicate that nursing education in achieving professional did not success and nurses foster thoughtful and it still remains a challenge in the world. Accordingly, in recent years, learning styles, new and creative methods of facilitating critical thinking such as student-center teaching methods, have been given more attention. The association between learning styles of postgraduate students with critical thinking in School of Nursing and Midwifery, Kerman University of Medical Sciences was designed. This was a descriptive-analytical correlation, with the study of 90 nursing students at the graduate level (Masters and PhD) university in 2011 and 2012. Instruments were two questionnaires, California critical thinking form B, and Kolb learning styles. There was a significant correlation between the critical thinking and teaching approaches (P < 0.001) so that active teaching approaches students (student-centered) were better trained in critical thinking. Between learning styles and critical thinking were also correlated so that the converging style (13.04 ± 2.67) and most accommodating style (3.82 ± 1.33) have the lowest average critical thinking. The results of the studies, one on revising instructional strategies current use of active teaching strategies to improve critical thinking and attention to individual learning styles are emphasized.