title: Impact of a concept map teaching approach on nursing students' critical thinking skills.
abstract: Nurses confront complex problems and decisions that require critical thinking in order to identify patient needs and implement best practices. An active strategy for teaching students the skills to think critically is the concept map. This study explores the development of critical thinking among nursing students in a required pathophysiology and pharmacology course during the first year of a Bachelor of Science in Nursing in response to concept mapping as an interventional strategy, using the Health Education Systems, Incorporated critical thinking test. A two-group experimental study with a pretest and posttest design was used. Participants were randomly divided into a control group (n = 42) taught by traditional didactic lecturing alone, and an intervention group (n = 41), taught by traditional didactic lecturing with concept mapping. Students in the concept mapping group performed much better on the Health Education Systems, Incorporated than students in the control group. It is recommended that deans, program directors, and nursing faculties evaluate their curricula to integrate concept map teaching strategies in courses in order to develop critical thinking abilities in their students.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA.
authors.forename: Mahmoud
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kaddoura
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS University), Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Van-Dyke
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA.
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003210:Concept Formation; D003479:Curriculum / Q000639:trends; D004508:Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D013338:Students, Nursing / Q000523:psychology*; D013663:Teaching; D013850:Thinking
keywords: HESI critical thinking test; concept map; critical thinking; nursing students; teaching and learning