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ABSTRACT
Problem-based learning (PBL) uses patients' problems to develop students' problem-solving and clinical skills. Inquiry-based learning (IBL) was developed as a similar methodology that was more holistic and flexible. This study sought to determine if inquiry-based learning (IBL) enhances critical-thinking ability as measured by the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA). The WGCTA was administered to 228 nursing students in the first semester and 257 students in the final semester of their program. When the scores were stratified into groups, the students in the low group showed a significant increase in mean score, no change in the medium group, and a significant drop for the high group.
In 1992, the University of Hawaii at Manoa School of Nursing adopted inquiry-based learning (IBL) as a teaching methodology. The development of IBL resulted from faculty's exposure to the National League of Nursing's curriculum revolution (NLN, 1989), as well as a study of problem-based learning tutorials developed by Barrows and Tamblyn (1980). IBL is designed to increase student involvement in their learning. Since its effect on students' critical thinking had not been tested, the purpose of this study was to determine if IBL as a teaching methodology enhances critical-thinking ability as measured by the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal.
PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING
Although many would contend that problem-based learning (PBL) began with Socrates and has continued throughout the history of medical education in the form of bedside clinical teaching, PBL formally originated at McMaster University School of Medicine in Ontario, Canada in the late 1960s. The theoretical underpinnings of PBL include the use of prior knowledge to understand and structure new information, encoding specificity (context) to make the transfer of learning more likely as it reflects real-life situations encountered in practice, and the elaboration of knowledge that occurs through discussion, answering questions, peer teaching, and critiquing (Biley & Smith, 1998).
At its most fundamental level, PBL is an instructional approach characterized by the use of patient problems as a context for developing students' problem-solving skills and for acquiring basic and clinical science knowledge (Albanese & Mitchell, 1993). The PBL literature indicates that students, while demonstrating knowledge gaps or reinforcement of wrong information (Bernstein, Tipping, Bercovitz, & Skinner, 1995), also demonstrate significantly deeper learning and less surface learning than...