Effectiveness of Simulation in Nursing Students' Critical Thinking Scores: A Pre-/Post-Test Study
Farida Saghafi, Nicole Blakey, Stephen Guinea, Tracy Levett‐Jones
Abstract
Background This study investigated how final-year undergraduate nursing students' critical thinking skills were impacted after attending a purposefully designed 15 hour program with nine hours of simulation-based learning activities aligned with a theoretical framework of clinical reasoning comprising the Clinical Reasoning Cycle and Debriefing for Meaningful Learning. Method A one-group pre-test post-test design was used. Fifty-six final semester undergraduate nursing students from five campuses of one Australian university participated in this study. Data were collected before and after the simulation program using the Health Sciences Reasoning Test. Results Analysis of data using paired sample t-tests demonstrated a positive change in critical thinking scores after completing the program (95% confidence interval 0.206-2.079). A total of 62.5% of participants achieved two scores higher after completing the simulation program. Conclusions Implementing a simulation program designed according to the Clinical Reasoning Cycle and using the Debriefing for Meaningful Learning model is associated with enhancing the critical thinking skills of nursing students.