Enhancing Critical Thinking in Graduate Nursing Online Asynchronous Discussions.
BACKGROUND Graduate nursing students in online courses often have limited success in developing the critical thinking (CT) skills essential for advanced roles. This study describes the use of complementary strategies in a graduate level nursing course to enhance CT in online discussions. METHOD Using Paul and Elder's framework for understanding the components of CT, the authors designed an asynchronous online course using multiple strategies to promote CT. We used mixed methods to collect descriptive and numerical data and content and repeated measures analyses to identify changes in CT skills and student perceptions across the semester. RESULTS CT scores increased significantly and aligned with students' perceived improvements in CT. CONCLUSION Evidence of CT in online discussions increased significantly across the semester with the use of multiple instructional strategies and substantial student and faculty efforts. The findings are a useful benchmark for future studies comparing combinations of strategies to identify those most effective and least arduous. [J Nurs Educ. 2016;55(9):514 521.
The Journal of nursing education