There has been a multidisciplinary plethora of critical thinking definitions stemming
from educators in 1912
through and inclusive of today. As nurses’ roles change in response to the dynamics
of managed care and an increase in use of biotechnology in health care, more is expected
of them both in terms of psychomotor and cognitive skills. The American Association
for Colleges of Nursing requires that critical thinking be reflected within academic
nursing programs as a core competency for program accreditation.
2
Although critical thinking has been associated with and evaluated in regard to learning
outcomes, little information exists which links critical thinking to patient outcomes.
The purpose of this article is to provide a literature review of critical thinking
and to explore a possible link between nurses’ critical thinking and patient outcomes.To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Nursing OutlookAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Education. Macmillan, New York, NY1912
- The essentials of Baccalaureate education for professional nursing practice. 1998
Reilly D, Oermann M. Clinical teaching in nursing, second ed New York, NY: NLN 55.
Ibid.
- The development of reflective judgment and formal operational thinking in adolescents and young adults (PhD thesis). University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota1977: 199
King, 1977,14.
- Nursing diagnosis process and application. McGraw-Hill, New York, NY1989: 22
McPeck J. Critical thinking and education. California:St Martin’s Press.
- Critical thinking assessment: measuring a moving target. Report and recommendations of the South Carolina Higher Education Assessment Network Critical Thinking Task Force. South Carolina Higher Education Assessment Network, Rock Hill, SC1966
Reilly and Oermann 1992.
Thorndike 1912, 42.
- Experience and education. Macmillan, New York, NY1938
- Teaching critical thinking using the scientific process as a model system. Santa Monica College, Santa Monica, CA1987
- Critical thinking. Foundation for Critical Thinking, Dillon Beach, CA1993
- Critical thinking. California Academic Press, Millbrae, CA1992
Gordon, 1987.
- Alternative views on defining critical thinking through the nursing process.Holistic Nurs Practitioner. 1993; 7: 71-76
- Teaching critical thinking. Praeger, New York, NY1988
Ibid.
- The arts and critical thinking in American education. Bergin and Garvey, Stamford, CT2000
Siegel H. Critical thinking as an educational ideal. Educational Forum, (Nov. 1980) 7-21.
- Critical thinking: a statement of expert consensus for purposes of educational assessment and instruction. The Delphi report: research findings and recommendations prepared for the committee on pre-college philosophy. 1990 (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED315-423)
- A concept of critical thinking.Harvard Educat Review. 1962; 32: 81-109
- Critical thinking in nursing. Appleton and Lange, Norwalk, CT1988
- Critical thinking in nursing. Saunders, Philadelphia, PA1995
- A transactional perspective on critical thinking.Scholarly Inquiry Nurs Practice. 1996; 10: 329-342
Alfaro-LeFevere, 1995.
- A consensus statement on critical thinking in nursing.J Nurs Ed. 2000; 39: 357
- Critical thinking skills and dispositions of baccalauereate nursing students - conceptual model for evaluation.J Professional Nurs. 1997; 13: 236-245
Gendrop and Eisenhauer, 1996.
Ibid.
- Response to “A transactional perspective on critical thinking”.Scholarly Inquiry Nurs Pract. 1996; 10: 347-350
- A critical thinking model for nursing judgment.J Nurs Ed. 1995; 33: 351-356
Ibid.
Paul. 1993.
- Assessment design issues for evaluating critical thinking in nursing.Holistic Nurs Practitioner. 1996; 10: 41-53
Jones and Brown, 1993.
- Outcome measurement.Inquiry. 1988; 25: 37-50
- The black box of patient outcomes research.Image. 1995; 27: 42
Ibid.
- Critical thinking in the nursing curriculum.Nurs Hlth Care. 1990; 11: 67-73
- The development and validation of an adult medical nursing critical thinking instrument. 1997 (Doctoral Dissertation Indiana University, 58-08A)
Ibid.
D Fesler “Assessment of critical thinking in perioperative nurses,” Instrument undergoing testing, unpublished.
McPeck, 1981.
- The extent to which critical thinking is subject-specific.Educational Researcher. 1990; 19: 13-16
Ibid.
Gendrop and Eisenhauer, 1996.
Cook, Johnson, Moore, et. al. 1966.
- It is time to move from the nursing process to critical thinking.AORN. 1997; 66: 318-320
- The relationship of education to critical thinking ability and values among nurses.J Professional Nurs. 1992; 8: 26-34
- Assessing critical thinking.New Directions Adult Continuing Education. 1997; 75: 17-28
- Doing the right thing.Nurse Educator. 1983; 8: 7-11
- Concept analysis as a strategy for promoting critical thinking.J Nurs Education. 1985; 24: 382
Ibid., 383
- Teaching tools what if? What else? What then? A critical thinking game.Nurse Educator. 1997; 22: 9-11
- Evaluating critical thinking in clinical practice.Nurse Educator. 1997; 22: 25-28
- Development of clinical reasoning exercises in a problem-based curriculum.Academic Med Supplement. 1996; 71: S105-S107
J Kurfiss Critical thinking. Theory, research, practice, and possibilities, ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report 2, (Washington:Association for the Study of Higher Education, 1988).
Logan, 1987.
del Bueno, 1983.
Brookfield, 1997.
Ibid., 18.
Ennis, 1962.
McPeck, 1981.
Ibid.
L S Cromwell “Assessing critical thinking,” New Directions for Community Colleges, 77 (Spring, 1992).
Sormunen and Chalupa, 1994.
- Demystifying critical thinking.Teaching Psychology. 1995; 22: 75-80
Oermann, 1997.
Gendrop and Eisenhauer, 1996.
- Assessing critical thinking across the curriculum.New Directions Teaching Learning. 1988; 34: 33-45
Cromwell, 1992.
Facione and Facione, 1996.
Sormunen and Chalupa, 1994.
Lohr, 1993.
- Nurse managed prenatal programs affect outcomes for corporations.Nurs Clinics N America. 1997; 32: 571-576
- Can pracice guidelines safely reduce hospital length of stay? Results from a multicenter interventional study.Am J M. 1998; 105: 33-40
- The role of the agency for health care policy and research (AHCPR) in improving outcomes of care.Nurs Clinics N America. 1997; 32: 521-541
- Methodological challenges and innovations in patient outcomes research.Med Care Supplement. 1994; 32: 13-21
- Do clinical pathways for major vascular surgery improve outcomes and reduce cost?.J Vasc Surg. 1997; 24: 179-185
- Reduced length of stay and improved appropriateness of care with a clinical path for total knee or hip arthroplasty.J Quality Improvement. 1996; 22: 617-627
Collier, 1997.
Weingarten, Riedinger, and Sandhu, 1998.
- Rapid recovery management.Heart Lung. 1997; 26: 289-297
Facione and Facione, 1996.
Jones and Brown, 1993.
Collier, 1997.
- Critical thinking disposition as a measure of competent clinical judgments.J Nurs Ed. 1994; 33: 345-349
Ibid.
Kurfiss, 1988.
Oermann, 1997.
Biography
Dr. Diane Fesler-Birch is the Vice President of Nursing and Clinical Services at Physicians Hospital, Portland, OR.
Article info
Identification
Copyright
© 2005 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
