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

Most critical thinking assessment tools are resource intensive and require significant time and money to administer. Moreover, these tools are not tailored to evaluate critical thinking skills among inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF) nurses. This pilot study explores the efficacy of using short videos to evaluate critical thinking for nurses working in an IRF.

We developed and filmed 3 clinical scenarios representative of common IRF events that require critical thinking on behalf of the nurse. Thirty-one IRF nurses participated in the study and independently scored their own critical thinking skills using a visual analog scale. Using the same scale, nurse managers and assistant managers who worked closely with the nurses also rated the critical thinking ability of each nurse. The nurse then viewed and responded in narrative form to each of the 3 videos. A scoring rubric was used to independently evaluate the critical thinking skills for each nurse based on the nurses' responses.

Nurses rated their own critical thinking skills higher than mangers rated them (m = 85.23 vs 62.89). There was high interrater reliability for scoring video 1k (0.65), video 2k (0.90), and video 3k (0.84).

The results demonstrate efficacy for further study of low-cost alternatives to evaluate critical thinking among neuroscience nurses providing IRF care.