REASONING STRATEGIES USED BY BACCALAUREATE NURSING STUDENTS IN DECISION MAKING (EDUCATION, FORMAL OPERATIONS, COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT, ADULT).
Contributors: Columbia University. Teachers College.
Published: 1985
Number of pages: 150
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The purpose of this exploratory study was to identify and to describe reasoning strategies used by baccalaureate nursing students in clinical decision making through the analysis of verbal protocols of decision-making performances. These verbal protocols were used to define a set of reasoning-process elements and to trace their organization into identifiable strategies. A secondary purpose was to determine if the reasoning-process elements or the strategies formed were related to a particular aspect of cognitive development.

Forty-nine subjects were interviewed using a written simulated nursing situation and a cognitive task of causal inference. Both tasks were followed by semi-structured interviews which were recorded and converted into typescripts. Thirty-six variables identified through protocol analysis were entered into a factor analysis to determine interrelationships. The resulting factors, four major and three minor, as well as the underlying variables, were subjected to statistical correlation procedures with the developmentally related categories determined by performance on the causal inference task. Also, z-scores for each of four major factors were compared to determine patterns of factor use.

The reasoning-process elements identified were: givens, requests, assertions, hypotheses, inferences, and decisions. The defined reasoning strategy components were: causal links, association links, negatives, repeats, perspective changes, bifurcations, multiple branches, and blocks. Reasoning strategy components specifically related to decisions were: linear, focal, and isolated structure types; linkages to givens, assertions, and hypotheses; and a set of classifications based upon the mixture of elements used in support.

The major strategies derived from the factor analysis were: complex decision-focused reasoning, structuring not directly related to decisions, internal support for decisions, and information search. All patterns found in the use of reasoning strategies were based on weaknesses in either information search, non-decision structuring, or a combination of limitation in non-decision structuring and limited use of factual information.

In conclusion, it was evident that reasoning strategies could be identified and described through the processes of protocol analysis and factor analysis, and that these are useful methods for examining decision making in nursing in more specific detail. Correlations of the reasoning-process variables with one aspect of cognitive development were not found.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-03, Section: B, page: 0796.

Thesis (ED.D.)--COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY TEACHERS COLLEGE, 1985.

School code: 0055.