Is Undergraduate Midwifery Curriculum Promoting Critical Thinking Skills In Students?

Knowledge and critical thinking skills are necessary for improving clinical performance and delivering an acceptable midwifery care and critical thinking skills is an educational standard in midwifery education. The aim of this study was comparing the critical thinking skills between first-year and final-year undergraduate midwifery students in Mashhad Nursing and Midwifery School. This descriptive-comparative and cross sectional study was conducted on 44 first-year and 22 final-year undergraduate midwifery students in Mashhad Nursing and Midwifery School in 2010-2011. Data were collected using a demographic form and California Critical Thinking Skills questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS software version 14، t-test، Mann-Whitney، ANOVA، Friedman، Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficient tests. P value less than 0. 05 was considered significant. The mean score of critical thinking skills for first-year and final-year undergraduate midwifery students were 10. 8±2. 5 and 10. 8 ±3. 4، respectively and in the normal range. There was no significant difference between two groups regarding critical thinking skills and its different dimension (p>0. 05). There is no significant difference between critical thinking skills in first-year and final-year undergraduate midwifery students.