Critical Thinking Skill and Academic Achievement Development in Nursing Students: Four-year Longitudinal Study

Abstract

Many studies have demonstrated that critical thinking skill increases the academic achievement (Tumkaya, 2011) and improves problem-solving skills (Bowles, 2000; Kucukguclu and Kanbay, 2011) and that students with high critical thinking scores are more successful in professional practices (Bowles, 2000). In addition to these, critical thinking skills take an important place in terms of nursing education as they enable providing reliable, effective and quality nursing care (Daly, 1998; Oerman, 1998; Paul and Heaslip, 1995). It is observed that university education, which constitutes the step before individuals go into the professional life, does not develop critical thinking skills adequately although it has an important function in the personal and professional lives of individuals (Kanbay et al., 2012, Kanbay and Okanli, 2017). Many studies have shown that critical thinking skills of university students are at a low level (Kantek et al., 2010; Akkus et al., 2010; Arslan et al., 2009; Bulut et al., 2009) or generally at a medium level (Beser and Kissal, 2009; Kucukguclu and Kanbay 2011; Korkmaz, 2009; Sen, 2009; Cetin, 2008; Kanbay et al., 2013). Critical thinking skills enable individuals to question and accept the information and to make effective decisions by developing alternative points of view. In this respect, individuals should gain critical thinking skills to be able to critically approach the information at all stages of education from pre-school education to higher education (Akca and Tasci, 2009). This can only be achieved through an educational system aimed at critical thinking (Kokdemir, 2003). For this reason, critical thinking should be explained and developed in the objectives of higher education programs (Ennis, 1997). Based on this whole literature, critical thinking was thought to have significant effects on nursing education, and the answers to the following questions were sought by planning this study with the aim of determining the development of nursing students’ critical thinking skills and academic achievements during undergraduate education and examining the change of critical thinking skills according to descriptive characteristics. • Do the mean scores of the critical thinking skills of students differ according to the follow-ups? • Do the mean scores of the academic achievement of students differ according to the follow-ups? • Is there a relationship between the mean score of critical thinking and academic achievement score according to the follow-ups? • Does critical thinking skill differ in terms of descriptive characteristics according to the follow-ups?