Implementing a Critical Thinking Tool to Evaluate Educational Needs for Inpatient Rehabilitation Nurses

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Clinical Skills Assessment
• Healthcare Professional Development

Background:

• Traditional critical thinking assessment tools are costly and time-consuming.
• Existing tools are not specifically designed for inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF) nurses.
• There is a need for efficient and tailored methods to evaluate nursing critical thinking in IRFs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the efficacy of using short videos to assess critical thinking skills in IRF nurses.
• To pilot a novel, low-cost approach for evaluating nursing critical thinking.
• To compare self-assessments with manager assessments of critical thinking.

Main Methods:

• Developed and filmed 3 clinical video scenarios for IRF nurses.
• 31 IRF nurses self-assessed critical thinking using a visual analog scale.
• Nurse managers also rated nurses' critical thinking; nurses responded to videos, with responses scored using a rubric.

Main Results:

• Nurses rated their critical thinking higher (85.23) than managers did (62.89).
• High interrater reliability was achieved for scoring video responses (0.65–0.90).
• The video-based method demonstrated feasibility and reliability.

Conclusions:

• Short videos are an effective, low-cost tool for evaluating critical thinking in IRF nurses.
• This method warrants further investigation as an alternative to traditional assessments.
• The findings support the development of accessible critical thinking evaluation tools for specialized nursing.