Impacts of Socratic questioning on moral reasoning of nursing students.
BACKGROUND
Nurses are often faced with complex situations that made them to make ethical decisions; and to make such decisions, they need to possess the power of moral reasoning. Studies in Iran show that the majority of nursing students lack proper ethical development. Socratic teaching is a student-centered method which is strongly opposed to the lecturing method.


OBJECTIVE
This study was conducted to evaluate the impacts of Socratic questioning on the moral reasoning of the nursing students.


METHODS
In a quasi-experimental study, Crisham's Nursing Dilemma Test was used to evaluate the results of three groups before, immediately after, and 2 months after intervention. The data were analyzed using the SPSS statistical software (v 15). Participants and research context: Through random allocation, 103 nursing students were divided into three groups. In experiment group 1 (37 students), intervention consisted of Socratic questioning-based sessions on ethics and how to deal with moral dilemmas; experiment group 2 (33 students) attended a 4-h workshop; and the control group (33 students) was not subject to any interventions. Signed informed consent forms: This research was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University. All the participants signed written informed consents.


RESULTS
There were significant differences between experiment group 1 and experiment group 2's pre-test and post-test scores on moral reasoning (p ≤ 0.001, p ≤ 0.001), nursing principled thinking (p ≤ 0.001, p ≤ 0.001), and practical considerations (p ≤ 0.001, p ≤ 0.031).


CONCLUSIONS
Both the teaching approaches improved the subjects' moral reasoning; however, Socratic questioning proved more effective than lecturing. Compared to other similar studies in Iran and other countries, the students had inadequate moral reasoning competence.


CONCLUSIONS
This study confirms the need for the development of an efficient course on ethics in the nursing curriculum. Also, it appears that Socratic questioning is an effective method to teach nursing ethics and develop nursing students' competence of moral reasoning.
Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Iran.
Camellia
C
Torabizadeh
Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Iran.
Leyla
L
Homayuni
Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Iran.
Marzieh
M
Moattari
D000328:Adult; D004993:Ethics, Nursing / Q000193:education*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007492:Iran; D008297:Male; D035863:Moral Development; D015402:Nursing Education Research; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research; D013338:Students, Nursing / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013850:Thinking; D055815:Young Adult
Ethics; Socratic questioning; lecturing; moral reasoning; nursing moral dilemmas