Doctoral Dissertations
Date of Award
5-2001
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Major
Educational Administration
Major Professor
Jeffery Aper
Committee Members
Lloyd Davis, Norma Mertz
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to describe the relationship between three measures of higher-order thinking skills and student achievement in a medical surgical nursing course in an associate-degree program. A secondary purpose of this study was to determine whether these higher-order thinking skills were important for success in nursing.The sample was comprised of 68 nursing students at Chattanooga StateTechnical Community College enrolled in a medical-surgical nursing course during the Fall of 1998. To help fulfill the secondary purpose of this study, a second group of participants included 25 practicing associate-degree nurses with 1-3 years of experience and employed at a large, urban hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee.The three higher-order thinking skills investigated were: critical thinking as measured by the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal, judgmental ability as measured by The Scale of Judgmental Ability in Nursing, and reflective judgment as measured by the rating of a semi-structured interview utilizing King and Kitchener'sReflective Judgment Model.Both groups of participants, the students and the practicing nurses, completed two written instruments, the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal and TheScale of Judgmental Ability in Nursing. They also completed a 20-30 minute interview with the investigator for the rating of reflective judgment.11The students' scores on each measure were correlated with the number of points (achievement) they had earned in the medical-surgical nursing course. Scoresbetween students and practicing nurses on each measure were also compared.Finding 1. A significant relationship was found between critical thinking as measured by the score on the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal and points(achievement) earned in the medical-surgical nursing course (r=.27, p=.028).Finding 2. A significant relationship was found between judgmental ability as measured by the score on The Scale of Judgmental Ability in Nursing and points(achievement) earned in the medical-surgical nursing course (r=.49, p =.00).Finding 3. No significant relationship was found between reflective judgment as measured by the rating of an interview utilizing King and Kitchener'sReflective Judgment Model and points (achievement) earned in the medical-surgical nursing course (r=.23, p = .062).Finding 4. No difference was found between student scores in the three measures of thinking and those of practicing nurses. However, a significant difference was found when only the scores of students who passed the nursing course were compared to the scores of practicing nurses. The students who passed the nursing course scored significantly higher on The Scale of Judgmental Ability inNursing than the practicing nurses.Finding 5. There was evidence that there was some overlap in what theWatson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal and The Scale of Judgmental Ability inNursing were measuring. There was evidence that the interviews based on King andillKitchener's Reflective Judgment Model were measuring something different from the other two instruments.
Recommended Citation
Miller, Cheryl L., "The relationship of three higher-order thinking variables to the academic achievement of second-year nursing students in an associate-degree program. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2001.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/8548