Assessing the disposition of the undergraduateuniversity nursing students toward critical thinkingat Faculty of Nursing El Minia University

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to assess critical thinking dispositions of the four academic year's undergraduate nursing students. A cross sectional descriptive design was utilized in this study. Sample of 347 nursing students who were completed 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th year of baccalaureate nursing program were assessed at the beginning and at the end of their academic year, Faculty of Nursing, El Minia University. The California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory [CCTDI] by Facione [1992] was used after translation into Arabic to measure the key theoretical aspects of the overall dispositional dimension of critical thinking. Results of this study revealed that, in the majority of sub-scales of CCTDI students showed an ambivalent disposition toward critical thinking, a statistical significant differences were found in relation to all dispositional level characteristics; the Mean and SD were low at the end of academic year than at the beginning of the academic year, the third academic year students have the highest mean score in the dispositional level characteristics [truth-seeking] ,the first academic year have the highest mean score regarding to all dispositional level characteristics except in [truth-seeking] while the fourth academic year have the lowest mean scores in all dispositional level characteristics and the females nursing students have a slight increase in mean scores in all dispositional level characteristics than males nursing students. In conclusion of the study finding the need for critical thinking in nursing has been accentuated in response to the rapidly changing health care environment. Nurses must think critically to provide effective care whilst coping with the expansion in role associated with the complexities of current health care systems. It is considered recommended that nurse educators must try new teaching approaches and to establish those teaching strategies that are most effective in promoting critical thinking [CT] among students and nursing teacher should modeling positive critical thinking dispositions as well as students nurse could act as role models for each others