Effect of Concept Mapping on Critical Thinking Skills of Baccalaureate Nursing Students

Today critical thinking (CT) is the cornerstone of higher education. Traditional teaching techniques, which promote mostly memorization, do not help nursing students think critically and solve problems in the clinical setting. The traditional nursing care plan needs to be replaced with evidenced-based methods of improving critical thinking skills of nursing students. The aim of this study was, to evaluate the effect of concept mapping, on critical thinking skills of baccalaureate nursing students. A quazi-experimental control group study with a pretest and posttest design was used on a convenient sample of 60 students in a selected Nursing Faculty in Cairo-Egypt. Two tools were used in this study: self-administered questionnaire and pre-post test of California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST), modified Arabic version were used. A pre-test was given to the two groups, to determine the baseline category of critical thinking skills. Post-test was given to the two groups at the end of the study after introducing intervention (concept mapping) to the experimental group. The study results revealed a highly statistical significant difference, in the pretest- post-test CT mean scores in the experimental group, with t value of =5.106 at P value =0.000 and the overall mean critical thinking post-test score was statistically significant, between the two groups with t value of 6.571 at P value of 0.000. It can be concluded that, students who were taught with concept mapping showed an increase in their CT scores, than those in the control group and thus, supported the study hypotheses. Nursing students require effective CT skills, in order to make sound knowledge-based assessment and treatment choices during patient care, so the researcher recommended further studies to examine the potential for concept mapping to be taught in pre-requisite courses, as a way to begin learning to critically think prior to their entry into the program.