Fostering skills for evidence-based practice: The student journal club

Critical appraisal skills and, importantly, understanding the decision-making process for whether to use or not use research findings in practice, are essential tools nursing educators need to foster in their students. The use of journal clubs as a teaching strategy for nursing education is an excellent way to raise research awareness, improve professional reading habits and critiquing skills, and involve nursing students to prepare them for the expectation of evidence-based practice. While journal clubs are not new strategies, they seem to be underused in formal nursing education. The purpose of this article is to describe a teaching strategy that can be used for large numbers of students, which fosters critical appraisal skills for research utilization in clinical practice through participation in a university-based student journal club. An evaluation of student perceptions of the impact of the student journal club on raising research awareness and teaching the research process is included.