Nurse education today
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Nurse education today · Aug 2008
ReviewA systematic review of selected evidence on developing nursing students' critical thinking through problem-based learning.
Rapidly changing developments and expanding roles in healthcare environment requires professional nurses to develop critical thinking. Nursing education strives to facilitate students' critical thinking through the appropriate instructional approaches. Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered approach to learning which enables the students to work cooperatively in small groups for seeking solutions to situations/problems. ⋯ As a result, only ten studies were retrieved, they were: one RCT with a Jadad quality score of 3, one nonrandomized control study, two quasi-experimental studies with non-controlled pretest-posttest design, and six descriptive studies. The available evidence in this review did not provide supportive evidence on developing nursing students' critical thinking through PBL. Clearly, there is a need for additional research with larger sample size and high quality to clarify the effects of PBL on critical thinking development within nursing educational context.
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Nurse education today · Aug 2008
Comparative StudyThe impact of assessment methods on the learning of nursing students.
Assessment methods can influence the learning approaches of nursing students. Assessments designed to assess understanding rather than rote learning can contribute to a deep learning approach. Multiple-choice questions can be formulated at high cognitive levels for nursing assessments. ⋯ However, there was no direct association with multiple-choice assessment. The academic achievement of students correlated negatively with their surface learning approach. Students (n=31) in four focus group interviews believed that assessments constructed using scenario-based questions, simulated role-play situations and case studies could direct desired learning in order to facilitate their understanding of knowledge, their use of critical thinking, and their application of knowledge.
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Nurse education today · Aug 2008
Predictors of educational outcomes of undergraduate nursing students in alcohol and drug education.
This paper reports a study which aimed to evaluate the impact of an educational programme on alcohol and drug on knowledge acquisition, changes in attitude and intervention confidence skills of undergraduate nursing students and identify the influence of selected demographic variables on educational outcomes. Despite the high levels of morbidity and mortality resulting from substance misuse, few nurses have been adequately prepared to respond effectively. There remains a dearth of evidence on the educational interventions in alcohol and drug with undergraduate nursing students and this study intends to add a body of knowledge to this field. ⋯ Within the multi-layered hypothesis, the results indicate that only ethnicity was found to have a significant influence on both knowledge acquisition (F(2,106)=6.59, p=0.002) and intervention confidence skills (F(2,106)=15.0, p=0.000). The study provides some evidence that a short intensive educational programme on alcohol and drug can be effective in improving educational outcomes. Further research should be undertaken with undergraduate nurses specialising in different branch of nursing.
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Nurse education today · Aug 2008
Professional and academic destination of masters in nursing graduates: a national survey.
Master's degrees, especially in the form of coursework master's programmes are becoming the main conduit for continuing professional education to the professions. However, there is a paucity of literature on the academic or professional destination of nurses following the completion of master's degrees in nursing. A cross-sectional postal survey of 322 graduates from masters in nursing programmes in Ireland was undertaken. ⋯ However, the majority of graduates did not view the degree as a pathway to a PhD but as an integral part of their continuing professional education and related to clinical practice. There is a reversal of the trend seen in Ireland and the UK in the mid to late 1990s in which the majority of graduates followed career pathways in nurse education. Although there has been an increase in the number of nurses completing master's level education over the last five years unemployment of underemployment of graduates is not yet an issue.
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Nurse education today · Jul 2008
Comparative StudyA comparison of problem-based and traditional education on nursing students' critical thinking dispositions.
Determining the critical thinking (CT) levels of students in undergraduate nursing schools is important in terms of establishing the methods of education that should be used. Although there is some evidence that active learning approaches like problem-based learning are effective in developing CT, the findings are inconclusive. This descriptive analytic study compared levels of critical thinking among senior nursing students (N=147) in two educational programs, one of which used a problem-based learning (PBL) model while the other used a traditional model. ⋯ There was a significant difference (p<0.05) between the critical thinking disposition scores of the seniors in the PBL school and those in the school implementing the traditional model. Analysis of sub-scale scores showed significant differences in truth-seeking and open-mindedness. These findings add to the evidence that the active and self-directed nature of PBL encourages students' ability to think critically, be tolerant of the ideas of others and evaluate conflicting information before reaching a conclusion.