Concept Mapping: A Tool for Critical Thinking Development in Nursing

Abstract

Critical thinking is important for the development of decision-making skills. The goal of nursing education management requires developing nursing students’ clinical judgment and critical thinking skills. When appropriately prepared and ready to learn, nursing students will be able to learn in a variety of clinical practice settings. Generally, critical thinking can use problem-based learning, case-based learning, and simulations. Concept mapping is a schematic device to represent a set of concepts meaningfully, helping students learn though their knowledge structure and knowledge construction. The process of concept mapping consists of: 1) subsumption, 2) progressive differentiation, and 3) integrative reconciliation. These can be applied to nursing courses to enhance critical thinking capacity, for instance, in terms of theory and practice integration, and clinical practice. Moreover, concept mapping can be used to develop nursing care plans. There are benefits for students in terms of ease of understanding and remembering since important concepts are connected in meaningful ways on one page.