Abstract
Title: Effect of Concept Mapping in Development of Critical thinking (CT) Skills among B.
Sc Nursing Students
Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of concept mapping as a teaching strategy to develop
critical thinking skills.
Materials and Methods: Pretest, post test control group design was used. The IV year B.Sc nursing students
were included as experimental group (n=40) and control group (n=44). The experimental
group was given a training to prepare nursing care plans using concept mapping. The
training programme was for 12 weeks where the participants were given case study scenarios
every week to prepare nursing care plans using concept map. The experimental group
and control group were again assessed for the critical thinking skills. The concept
maps were evaluated using scoring criteria.
Results: In the post test, there was a significant difference in the critical thinking scores
of both the groups at 0.05 level. (t=2.16). A significant improvement was identified
between the pretest and post test critical thinking scores of experiment group at
0.05 level (t=2.0). Comparison of concept mapping scores of the experimental group
in the pretest and post test showed a highly significant difference at 0.041 level.
Conclusion: The study was able to show a significant improvement in the critical thinking skills
of nursing students. However, the critical thinking scores were poor due to the high
standard of the assessment tool. It is needed to develop critical thinking skill assessment
tool which will suit the nursing community and further research is required to promote
concept mapping as a teaching and learning strategy.
Keywords
Concept Mapping - Critical thinking - nursing process
