Concept maps: A strategy to teach and evaluate critical thinking

The purpose of this article is to describe a study that implemented concept maps as a methodology to teach and evaluate critical thinking. Students in six senior clinical groups were taught to use concept maps. Students creat ed three concept maps over the course of the semester. Data analysis demons trated a group mean score of 40.38 on the first concept map and 135.55 on t he final concept map, for a difference of 98.16. The paired t value compari ng the first concept map to the final concept map was -5.69. The data indic ated a statistically significant difference between the first and final map s. This difference is indicative of the students' increase in conceptual an d critical thinking. I tell you one thing, if you learn it by yourself, if you have to get down and dig for it, it never leaves you. It stays there as long as you live bec ause you had to dig it out of the mud before you learned what it was (Wiggi nton, 1985, prologue). -Aunt Addie Norton In the preceding quote, Addie Norton refers to a special type of learning. This type of learning is defined as one that requires an active process of thinking, learning, and drawing relationships. The questions nurse educator s face are: Do we teach students to think and learn in this fashion? Do we help students develop the critical-thinking skills that will facilitate a l ifelong ability to "dig it out of the mud?' The purpose of this article is to describe a study that implemented concept maps as a methodology to teach and evaluate critical thinking. As nursing education has shifted to an emphasis on outcomes-oriented education, the is sue of teaching and evaluating critical thinking has come to the forefront. The National League for Nursing (NLN) now requires the demonstration of cr itical thinking in graduates of all nursing programs in the United States ( NLN, 1996). One of the major issues in the teaching and evaluation of critical thinking is the development and use of tools and instruments that both foster the t eaching, ao well as the measurement, of critical thinking,specific to the c ontext in which learning occurs. instruments exist that measure general asp ects of critical thinking (e.g., California Critical Thinking Skills Test [ Facione, 1992]; Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal [Watson & Glaser, 1980]; The Cornell Critical Thinking Test [Ennis, Millman, & Tomko, 1985]) , but these instruments do not possess a connection to the context of nursi ng practice. This issue of the measurement of critical thinking within a pa rticular context is important because if nurse educators teach students to think critically and then evaluate their performance using unconnected, gen eral measures we in essence have failed to demonstrate validity in our meas urement of the concept of critical thinking.