• Mohammad Gholami, Parastou Kordestani Moghadam, Fatemeh Mohammadipoor, Mohammad Javad Tarahi, Mandana Sak, Tahereh Toulabi, and Amir Hossein Hossein Pour.
• School of Nursing and Midwifery, Lorestan University of Medical Sciences, Khorramabad, Iran. Electronic address: mohammad13565@yahoo.com.
• Nurse Educ Today. 2016 Oct 1; 45: 16-21.

BackgroundProblem-based learning (PBL) is a method used to develop cognitive and metacognitive skills in nursing students.ObjectivesThe present study was conducted to compare the effects of PBL and the traditional lecture method on critical thinking skills and metacognitive awareness in nursing students in a critical care nursing course.DesignThe present study was conducted with a quasi-experimental, single group, pretest-posttest design.MethodsA group of third-year nursing students (n=40) were recruited from Khorramabad School of Nursing and Midwifery in the west of Iran. The lecture method was used in one group over the first eight weeks of the first semester and PBL was adopted in the second eight weeks. Standardized self-report questionnaires including The California Critical Thinking Skills Test-B (CCTST-B) and the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) were administered before and after the use of each of the instruction methods. Data were analyzed in SPSS using the paired t-test.FindingsNo significant changes were observed in the students' critical thinking skills and metacognitive awareness after performing the lecture method. However, a significant increase was observed in the overall critical thinking score (P<0.01) and its sub-scales of evaluation and deduction (P<0.05) and in the overall metacognitive awareness score (P<0.001) after performing the PBL method.Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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