Critical Thinking Skills in Nursing Students - Research Paper Example

? Quantitative Research Critique Paper Overview of the Study This work has been compiled by a group and directors inthe department of nursing and anesthesia program, and directors from the Simulation and Technology R&D Center. These are people with vast knowledge in the area of Nursing and Simulation metrics. By the virtue of their profession and longevity in the same field, they are most equipped individuals with the relevant information so needed to provide a rational comparison of the two fields. Personally, I can therefore affirm that they are very qualified to have conducted this research on the topic they presented. The study focused on comparing the nursing students critically in terms of simulation performance basis with metrics. According to the report presented, title of the study is appropriate and none other could suit the study any better. The abstract of the report is quite well composed. It begins by highlighting the main aim of the study which is apparently the establishment of the existing relationship between the metrics of critical thinking skills and performance in simulated clinical scenarios. The background to the study has also been provided. Their study was motivated by the fact that they realized that over the years, there had been no presentation of simulated performances for nursing students, rather, only pen and pencil assignments took prominence in the determination of the students’ understanding. They therefore felt there was a great need to carry out a critical comparison of the two phenomena in establishing the critical thinking of students. Research methodology has similarly been captured in the abstract giving brief details on the sample size. However, the target population and working population were not mentioned in this part. Summary results have been presented according to the various research variables. This section can alternatively be referred to as an abstract. The conclusion provided is good but it lacks possible remedies to the problem under study (Fero et al., 2010). Introduction Apparently, the term introduction has not been appropriately used in this study report. An introduction should explain to the reader the contents of the paper. This is not the case with this work. That which is under the introduction is information regarding the study problem. As a student very well equipped with knowledge in the compilation of research reports, I expect to find information directing me on the contents of the research paper at the introduction segment. For instance, I expected to find an outline of the various subheadings like in chapter one; we have background information, problem statement and study rationale, general and specific objectives, hypotheses etc among others. The paper has good information but its arrangement is problematic. It has not been partitioned to the chapters that a research report normally should have. It is in Chapter two were we should have Literature Review, and a conceptual or theoretical framework. This kind of arrangement is missing. Chapter three should comprise of information explaining the Research Methodology applied in the research, the tools and techniques applied in data collection. The fourth Chapter provides data analysis and results, whereas in the fifth Chapter, possible solutions in the form of recommendations are provided alongside the summary of results. A room for further research should also be provided as one study cannot adequately identify all problems or even solves them absolutely (Fero et al., 2010). Background Information Part of the background information was captured in the overview of the study segment of the research report. However, they still expounded on what informed them to carry out the research in this section. Problem Statement The introductory segment of this research report captured the problem that necessitated the conducting of the study. They have highlighted it to be a need to establish the availability of critical thinking, problem solving and communication skills among nurses. This need arose from the fact that nurses have, and must maintain a high degree of alertness and an ability to undertake clinical judgment in order to detect the early changes in their patients so as to know the appropriate timing for interventions. It is very crucial for nurses to exhibit these qualifications as it has been noted that in the past, patients’ safety errors have closely been attributed to nurses’ incompetency in these particular specialties. They further argued that critical thinking has been inconsistently and ambiguously defined in the medical profession, a factor that further motivated them to undertake this study to find out why and offer probable solutions. They have precisely pointed out that critical thinking of nurses cannot be efficiently evaluated based on pen and pencil assignments, because this only gives the cognitive capabilities whereas more to that need to be established; the practical bit of exercising that critical thinking capabilities in a clinical performance. The examples given to justify the necessity for the study are well presented and allusions are done to recent secondary sources (books published in the past one decade). The presentation is precise and direct to the point and medical jargon has been properly used. However, no definition of terms has been provided considering the fact that not all readers of the report will understand the nursing jargon (Fero et al., 2010). This report has indicated the general and specific objectives; however, they have not highlighted the research questions or the research hypotheses. They have also not mentioned who will nor were the benefactors of the research findings, which is equally important. The findings could be used by professors, nursing students, the states ministry of higher learning especially the health department, potential employers in the medic sector etc. Limitations of the study were seen as that, even though the within-subject used gave a great study power and variance error reduction, performance assessments were actually based on simulated vignettes which made it possible for either of them to differ. The students who volunteered to participate in the study may not have been less confident and less prepared which could have led to the attainment of non-representative results. To ensure ethics, permission to carry out the study was obtained from a university institutional review board, and a written informed consent was obtained from all the participants (Fero et al., 2010). Literature Review In this section, past studies are reviewed and gaps established. It is based on this gaps that the researchers builds on what they are actually going to study. The purpose of this is to avoid repetition of studying phenomena that has already been dealt with. However, much more can be done if a researcher feels that not much had been done in the previous studies. The researcher is also allowed to criticize what he/she disagrees with, provided that they provide justifications for their arguments based on empirical data and not just mere statements. This is the reason as to why researchers need both primary and secondary data to draw theory from. This research report has attempted to capture the different meanings of critical thinking as has been given by various scholars. This is very essential in research whether qualitative or quantitative in nature. It shows that the researcher acknowledges the works of those before him/her. It most especially provides the basis on which the topic under study was established and the criteria for its discussional grounds. This simply means, a researcher cannot fail to take notice of the efforts in research of those who came before him, they have the liberty, and however, to accept or refute such contributions and come up with newly founded theories. They have acknowledged contributions by IOM, for instance who argued that competency in nursing actually plays a very important role in the reassuring of the patients’ safety. They have notably tackled on the variables of VTV and HFHS, emphasizing on how both simulation methods can effectively be used in the evaluation and application of nursing students capabilities in the aspect of critical thinking. This research has critiqued previous researchers by the fact that no any other researchers had attempted to evaluate the relationship that existed between student scores in tests of critical thinking with the nurses’ actual performance specifically using the simulation performance based methods. They also have pointed out that there is little or no literature that highlights the areas where performance is weakest. This is commendable for the researchers who did this paper as they clearly identified the gaps that existed and needed to be filled in the area of nursing students’ critical thinking and actual practical performance (Fero et al., 2010). The problem with their literature review is that, not all the variables were exhaustively dealt with. Critical thinking variable for instance has been explained to detail, as well as simulation based methods. However, these two could not be the only relevant variables to this study; the students’ personality and the value attached to the practical bit of nursing could as well have been looked into, for an effective unveiling of the relationship between class assignment scores and the simulation performance. A student can be very bright in class but when it comes to practicing the theory, it gets a little difficult. In other circumstances, some students go through the education system just for the sake of it, probably due to pressure from their parents; it could be a course they were not interested in from the very start. Such an attitude can also be used to explain a relationship existing between class and field actual performance. Again, they mixed literature review with previous and current study findings, which should not be the case. Findings should be presented in a totally different chapter, and since this is a quantitative research, we expect to have findings on the various variables studied to be presented statistically and not as narrations (Fero et al., 2010). It is also in this section where I expected to find a conceptual framework that shows the variables of the study, presented in a manner that we can see the relationship between and among them. Instead of a conceptual framework, a theoretical framework was done which is still good, considering that the theory used explained what people say they’ll do and what they actually do. This was quite relevant to the study, because nursing students learn how to practice in the field, but there seems to be a difference when it comes to what some of them actually do in their practice. Some students perform excellently, but cannot convince a patient who is going for an operation that they’ll offer the best service to help the patient, which actually scares patients. This is what they referred to as the governing rules (sound clinical performance and judgment), action strategies (applying critical thinking), and outcomes (critical scores), in their explanation. Research Methodology This section outlines the sampling procedures that were employed in acquiring the sample that was studied. Apparently, in this research report, the arrangement was not systematically done; these elements were present under a sub-heading, Design. They applied a quasi-experimental, and cross over design. The justification provided for adopting this specific sampling method was that it gave a greater study power and reduced the associated individual differences error variance. A critic up to that point is that, they only provided actual population of study and did not give the target population from which the sample was drawn from. However, distribution of the sample was fair enough with 14 Diploma students, 12 Associates and 10 others from the baccalaureate level, totaling to 36 nursing students as the actual sample size. They also have included the geographical residence of the sample that was studied. All participants were above 18 years of age and had been effectively prepared for nursing, both in and out-patient. Instruments used in the study were also highlighted and reliability for each as ensured (Fero et al., 2010). Result Findings and Analysis In this section, reporting is quantitatively presented. Scores were however, categorized as weak, average or strong, whereas critical thinking was presented as percentiles (quantitative analysis). To measure individual’s capabilities in the area of analysis, evaluation, inference, inductive and deductive reasoning, the CCTST items were used. As earlier said, reliability of the CCTST was checked to be 0.78-0.80 using the Kuder-Richardson-20. The findings were appropriately analyzed using SPSS/PC+ software version 16.0. The descriptive data included was age, race, gender, educational programme, internship/residence participation, nursing aide experience and the classroom numbers in their curriculum using HFHS. Chi-square was appropriately used to compare VTV and HFHS simulation performance scores. The order effect was also studied. Another method, the Cramer’s V was used to test for the relationship between the disposition of critical thinking and skills i.e CCTDI and CCTST scores as well as VTV and HFHS. Notably, the statistical significance was set at 0.05. Results were presented in tabular form after the computations. Results were presented in percentages including all comparisons made for the variables involved. All these kinds of measurements show that the data was measured, analyzed and reported statistically as quantitative research requires (Fero et al., 2010). Summary, Recommendations and Conclusion These were given at the culmination of the paper; and it was concluded that, even after the favorable reviews that had actually been done, based on simulation based methods for creative thinking, still no quantitative supporting evidence effective enough was found. It was agreed that it is necessary to correlate the simulation based performance with actual clinical competency since it has proven effective, therefore the need for a further research. Reference Fero, L. et al. (2010). Critical thinking skills in nursing students: comparison of simulation-based performance with metrics. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 4 (7), 23-27. Read More