Comparison of the Effect of Teaching Concept Mapping and Problem Solving Methods on the Critical Thinking of Nursing Students

Unstable clinical conditions require training of nurses with high critical thinking. Therefore, it is necessary to use new educational methods. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of comparing the effect of teaching concept mapping and problem-solving methods on the critical thinking of nursing students.

A semi-experimental study was conducted on 75 nursing students of the fifth semester of Golestan free universities in the first semester of 2023-2024. The sampling method was multi-stage. Through a lottery, among the five independent nursing colleges, three colleges were selected from the east, west and central regions of Golestan province and with the letters inside them were (A conceptual map group), (B problem solving group) and (O control group) were assigned to three groups of concept mapping (Aliabadkatoul unit), problem solving (Azadshahr unit) and control (Gorgan unit) and 25 people from each faculty were included in the study. Concept mapping and problem-solving training was carried out in eight weekly 90-minute sessions for two months. The California Critical Thinking Skills Questionnaire (Form B, 1990) was completed before and after the intervention. Data were analyzed with SPSS version 24 software and mean and standard deviation, Fisher's test, chi-square, independent and paired t test, and ANOVA test at a significance level of less than 0.05.

The average scores of critical thinking in the concept map group (before 10.12±3.71, after 15.52±5.47), problem solving (before 10.56±3.25, after 20.4±5.42) and the control was (before 10.32±3.11, after 10.92±3.82), and a statistically significant difference was observed between the three groups (P<0.05). According to the Bonferroni test, the effect of problem-solving method of teaching in increasing the critical thinking score was more than that of concept map method (P<0.05).

According to the results of this study, the problem-solving method can be used to increase critical thinking in nursing students.