Assessing the critical thinking skills of faculty: What do the findings mean for nursing education?

The purpose of this study was twofold: to determine the critical thinking skills of nurse faculty and to examine the relationship between epistemological position and critical thinking. Most participants reported having no education on critical thinking. Data were collected using the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) and the Learning Environment Preferences (LEP). Findings from the CCTST indicated that faculty varied considerably in their ability to think critically; LEP findings suggested that participants had not reached the intellectual level needed for critical thinking. In addition, 12 faculty participated in one-hour telephone interviews in which they described experiences in which students demonstrated critical thinking. Despite a lack of clarity on the definition of critical thinking, faculty described clinical examples where students engaged in analysis, inference, and evaluation. Based on these findings, it is recommended that faculty transfer their ability to engage students in critical thinking in the clinical setting to the classroom setting. Benchmarks can be established based on the ability of faculty to engage in critical thinking.