Critical Thinking and Disposition Skills among Nurse Educators in Jordanian Universities: An Exploration of the Perceived Practices and the Measured Achievement

Aim: This paper is a report of the explorative study that examined the critical thinking (CT) experience of nurse educators from six Jordanian universities. Background: Critical thinking is an educational process and outcome of the Jordanian strategy to develop nursing education and enhance the quality of nursing graduates. Method: A three-part survey questionnaire was used in this study: the California Critical thinking Skill Test, the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory, and the experience survey. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to achieve the study aim. Data were collected between October and December 2008. Findings: The overall response rate was 73% (n=73). Although nurse educators demonstrated positive dispositions towards critical thinking as well as high expectations of their practice of critical thinking, their scores on the skill test could not reflect these findings. These findings indicated that they require further professional development to support their work in enhancing critical thinking. Furthermore, age, gender, degree and experience of educational concepts were found to affect the result. This study suggests that nurse educators have positive inclination towards and high perceived practices of critical thinking. However, they did not reflect that in their achievement. Conclusion: Further efforts should be directed towards transforming educators beliefs into practices. The educators need to improve their professional knowledge of CT, and that the organization is responsible for providing professional development opportunities that promote CT among its faculty members.