The development of critical thinking in initial nursing education through an educational intervention.
Nursing. Nursing education. Thinking. Educational Techonology. Life Support Care. Learning.
Critical thinking requires the use of all the knowledge produced up to now, as well as searching for sources that feed the new knowledge roll and know how to direct them to practical application situations, with a unique evaluation capacity for each case. This characterizes a great challenge for the courses that are designed to develop such attributes, which lead to lifelong training. In this context, the promotion of critical thinking in undergraduate Nursing students has become one of the most imperative tasks for teaching at this level, which should be a common goal for all courses that aim to train nurses. It is hoped that the nursing professional will be able to develop the critical thinking applied to the problem of the moment, so that the care provided to the patient is adequate, regardless of the situation that presents itself and its adversities. Faced with these statements it is worth questioning whether a teaching strategy through the elaboration of Conceptual Maps associated with case studies favors the development of critical thinking in Nursing undergraduate students. To answer this question, the present study intends to compare the level of critical thinking developed between two distinct proposals of higher education in Nursing referring to the specific content of Advanced Life Support in Cardiology. It is an experimental, randomized, double-blind study with a before-after design to be carried out with undergraduate Nursing students from two public higher education institutions in different Brazilian regions. This project was submitted to the ethical assessment according to Resolution no. 466/12 of the National Health Council with favorable opinion number 752.501 and CAAE number 33917214.9.0000.5537. Data collection took place through the use of a validated and applied instrument, the California Critical Thinking Skills Test, complemented by a socioeconomic questionnaire. To reach the proposed objective and to follow the methodological rigor of the design, an Extension Course on Advanced Life Support in Cardiology was elaborated, composed of dialogic expository classes and practical activities in the laboratory lasting 40 hours. The 77 participants in the study were randomized to the Control Group (n = 38) and Intervention Group (n = 39) in which the study intervention consisted in the construction of four conceptual maps through Cmap Tools Software. This study obtained data from systematic literature reviews that suggest evidence-based practice as the teaching strategy that most favors the development of critical thinking, as measured by different measurement instruments, with emphasis on the California Critical Thinking Skills Tests. After the analysis of the tests, the average critical thinking score for the control group 15 (+/- 3.5) and for the intervention group 14.1 (+/- 3.7) in the pre-test and 14.6 (+/- 3.9) and 14.1 (+/- 3.4). There was no statistical difference for p-value of 0.05 according to the t-test. As for critical thinking skills, there was a significant increase (p-value 0.022) for the development of skill assessment in the intervention group. The study suggests that the conceptual mapping teaching strategy is useful in the refinement and development of critical thinking.