Assistant Director LVN to RN Program Mission College San Jose, California, United States
Disclosure(s):
Carol D. Hartman, MSN, RN, RNC-OB: No financial relationships to disclose
Abstract: Important aspects to competent nursing practice are critical thinking and a well-developed sense of critical judgement. Unfortunately, many nursing students do not possess these skills upon graduation. Instructors struggle to develop critical thinking and reasoning skills due to lack of quality clinical situations and limited active teaching strategies. Searching for solutions, this evidence-based teaching project looks at whether pre-licensure nursing programs that use high-fidelity simulation can increase critical thinking and reasoning skills in their students by the end of the program compared to programs that do not offer simulation. A thorough literature search was conducted using three databases, Citations and Abstracts for Literature of Nursing and Allied Health (CINHAL), PubMed, and MEDLINE. The search timeline was between 2015 and 2022. Keywords used were: (a) simulation in nursing education, (b) critical thinking skills and (c) critical decision making. Peer reviewed articles in English with high to medium quality evidence were included. Analysis was done with the JHEBP evidence tools. The evidence endorses high-fidelity simulation in acquiring critical thinking and reasoning skills in nursing students. A limitation is that some studies failed to explore whether these results could be retained long term. The results recommend that pre-licensure programs include high-fidelity simulation as a teaching strategy to develop critical thinking and foster critical judgement. Further research could be done by adopting high-fidelity simulation in many and varied courses throughout a pre-licensure program to help maintain the gains in those learning objectives. Keywords: critical thinking, critical decision-making, high fidelity simulation, nursing student, pre-licensure program
Learning Objectives:
Upon completion, the participants will be able to define critical thinking and reasoning and how it plays into the NCSBN critical judgement model
Upon completion, the participants will be able to discern how high-fidelity enhances critical thinking and reasoning.
Upon completion, the participants will conclude that including high-fidelity simulation in the curriculum will be beneficial for student learning outcomes.
