Critical thinking skills of undergraduate nursing students: Description and demographic predictors

This study investigated the critical thinking skills among undergraduate nursing students in Australia to obtain a profile and determine demographic predictors of critical thinking. There is universal agreement that being a critical thinker is an outcome requirement for many accreditation and registering nursing bodies. Most studies provide descriptive statistical information about critical thinking skills while some have studied the changes in critical thinking after an intervention. Limited research about factors that predict critical thinking skills is available. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted using convenience sampling. Two hundred and sixty-nine students were recruited across three years of an undergraduate programme in 2009. Most students' age ranged from under 20 to 34years (58%), 87% were female, 91% were Australian and 23% of first and second year students had nursing associated experience external to the university. Data about critical thinking skills were collected via the Health Science Reasoning Test (HSRT). Linear regression analysis investigated the predictors of nursing students' critical thinking skills. The students in third year had a profile of critical thinking skills comparable with HSRT norms. Year of study predicted higher critical thinking scores for all domains (p