Introduction: promoting critical thinking skills is one of the goals of higher education and an expected capacity for nursing students. thus, it is necessary for them to improve such an ability during education and to develop it after getting educational experiences and employing in nursing profession.with regarding to the importance this issue ,so it is necessary to more studing in this field.
Aim: Comparison of critical thinking skills between freshman and senior nursing students and clinical nurses in the University of Zahedan Medical Sciences in 2010.
Methods: In a deseriptive – analative study the dinical skill level of 90 freshman and senior nursing students and 30clinical nurses of the university of zahedan medical sciences was determined in 2010 .the sampling method inused was nonrandom while nurse contributors were selected through random sampling.The instrument of collecting data for this study was the from of Watson and glaser standard questionnaire (form A).The data was analyzed by SPSS software using descriptive statistics and statistical tests of ANOVA.
Results: the findings showed that the mean score of critical thinking of the first year nursing students was 39 ±5/54,the last year nursing students was 42/80±5/37 and clinical nurses was 41/30±4/12, indicating the weekness in critical thinking abilities in the study groups. The mean score of default diagnostic ability (p = 0.026) and interpretation of (p = 0/006) senior nursing students were significantly higher than freshman students and clinical nurses however, from ,the point of the view of ability to infer and deduce, among these three groups, there was no significant difference. Statistical tests indicated a significant difference between the mean scores of critical thinking skills in these three groups (p = 0/006), so that it can be concluded that the critical thinking ability of senior students was more than freshman students and critical thinking ability of clinical nurses after at least two years of clinical experience was less than senior students.
Conclusion: According to the findings, it can be stated that although critical thinking is crucial in clinical judging and decision making, no significant development had occurred during education process. Thus, the traditional education system requires development and revision to achieve the educational goal of training creative and efficient students. The use of more active learning method ,and to active participation of nurses in clinical decisions are suggested.