Critical Thinking Skills of Nursing Students in Semnan University of Medical Sciences

Today, the promotion of critical thinking skills is considered an expected outcome of postgraduate studies. This study was designed to determine the critical thinking skills of nursing students of Semnan University of Medical Sciences. In a descriptive cross-sectional study 107 continuous and incontinuous bachelor nursing students were investigated in 2001. The California Critical Thinking Skill Test, form B (CCTST:FB) composed of 34 multiple choice questions was used to assess the critical thinking skills in five areas of analysis, evaluation, inference, inductive and deductive reasoning. The data was analyzed by SPSS software using ANOVA, t-test, Spearman and Pearson correlation coefficient. The mean and standard deviation of critical thinking scores for continuous and incontinuous bachelor students were 12.34 2.45 and 11.27 3.10, respectively which were significantly different. There was a significant difference between critical thinking skills scores of continuous bachelor nursing students in different years of study, but no significant difference was observed between mean scores of first and second year incontinuous bachelor nursing students. A poor but significant correlation was seen between students’ average marks in previous semesters and their scores in the test (r=0.31). Continuous bachelor nursing students were superior to incontinuous bachelor nursing students in terms of critical thinking skills. There was also a significant difference between junior and senior nursing students. Nursing education improves the critical thinking skills of continuous bachelor nursing students, but, investigating the role of the university education seems necessary.