EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY AND SETTING: Pharmacy students developed a "hands-on" health campaign for delivery to university students. A health promotion topic was chosen and delivered each year for 2015-2017; sexual health, diabetes, and antimicrobial resistance, respectively. All health campaign participants were screened for cardiovascular risk factors. University students who participated in the health campaign in 2017 also completed a questionnaire assessing their understanding and knowledge of antimicrobial resistance.
FINDINGS: In the three health campaigns conducted from 2015 to 2017, 1010 university students and adults were screened. Pharmacy students expressed a high level of professional achievement and satisfaction and felt that the activities provided a meaningful learning experience. Similarly, supervising pharmacists reported satisfaction with students' competency.
SUMMARY: The use of a health education campaign is an alternative model to educate pharmacy students on communication and critical thinking skills, as well as provide an opportunity for service learning.
AIM: To understand whether critical care nurses' critical thinking disposition affects their clinical decision-making skills.
METHOD: This was a cross-sectional study in which Malay and English translations of the Short Form-Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory-Chinese Version (SF-CTDI-CV) and the Clinical Decision-making Nursing Scale (CDMNS) were used to collect data from 113 nurses working in seven critical care units of a tertiary hospital on the east coast of Malaysia. Participants were recruited through purposive sampling in October 2015.
RESULTS: Critical care nurses perceived both their critical thinking disposition and decision-making skills to be high, with a total score of 71.5 and a mean of 48.55 for the SF-CTDI-CV, and a total score of 161 and a mean of 119.77 for the CDMNS. One-way ANOVA test results showed that while age, gender, ethnicity, education level and working experience factors significantly impacted critical thinking (p<0.05), only age and working experience significantly impacted clinical decision-making (p<0.05). Pearson's correlation analysis showed a strong and positive relationship between critical care nurses' critical thinking and clinical decision-making (r=0.637, p=0.001).
CONCLUSION: While this small-scale study has shown a relationship exists between critical care nurses' critical thinking disposition and clinical decision-making in one hospital, further investigation using the same measurement tools is needed into this relationship in diverse clinical contexts and with greater numbers of participants. Critical care nurses' perceived high level of critical thinking and decision-making also needs further investigation.
Methods: This cross-sectional study used the sequential exploratory type of mixed methods design in which quantitative data analysis was performed via survey-based questionnaires and qualitative study. For this purpose, we performed a thematic analysis of semi-structured interview questions that were administered to all participants using the self-interview technique.
Results: A majority of students were of the opinion that the process of making poster preparation acted as an opportunity to promote deep learning. Moreover, a majority expressed that making these presentations required teamwork, which gave them an insight into collaborative learning.
Conclusion: Our study revealed that poster presentations, when used effectively as an assignment, can facilitate a learner's critical and reflective thinking and promoting active learning. Previous generic guidelines for making posters were found to be an important step that led to a systematic scientific approach amongst learners as well as for integrating basic science and medical knowledge.
METHOD: This cross-sectional study included 549 nurses recruited via multistage cluster sampling. Nurses completed the demographic questionnaire and Health Sciences Reasoning Test (HSRT).
RESULTS: The majority of respondents failed to demonstrate critical thinking skills with a mean overall HSRT score of 13.8 (SD = 3.4). Educational qualifications (p = .003) and clinical specialties (p = .022) were significantly related to nurses' critical thinking skills. Years of clinical experience, age, and job ranking were not significant CONCLUSION: The findings indicate a need to address the present curriculum in nursing education and to reinforce critical thinking skills in the nursing workforce. Future research on how nurses in Malaysia acquire critical thinking skills is needed. [J Contin Educ Nurs. 2020;51(3):109-117.].
METHODS: A research proposal writing format was created for the 4th year medical students of Melaka Manipal Medical College, Malaysia during their ophthalmology clinical postings. The students worked in small groups and developed research protocols through an evidence based approach. This was followed by writing reflective summaries in academic portfolios about the activity undertaken. A mixed methods study was designed to explore the possible role of collaborative research proposal writing in enhancing critical thinking and collaborative learning.
RESULTS: Analysis of reflections submitted by 188 medical students after the intervention indicate that majority of them found an improvement in their skills of critical thinking and collaborative learning as a result of research protocol writing. All participants agreed that the model helped in applying concepts to new situations in the form of designing their own study, which reflected in enhanced higher order cognitive skills.
CONCLUSION: This study shows that the introduction of a structured module in the core medical curriculum that focuses on research writing skills embedded with collaborative and reflective practices can enhance collaborative learning, critical thinking, and reasoning among medical students.