Critical-thinking ability in respiratory care students and its correlation with age, educational background, and performance on national board examinations

BACKGROUND: Critical thinking is an important characteristic to develop in respiratory care students. METHODS: We used the short-form Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal instrument to measure critical-thinking ability in 55 senior respiratory care students in a baccalaureate respiratory care program. We calculated the Pearson correlation coefficient to assess the relationships between critical-thinking score, age, and student performance on the clinical-simulation component of the national respiratory care boards examination. We used chi-square analysis to assess the association between critical-thinking score and educational background. RESULTS: There was no significant relationship between critical-thinking score and age, or between critical thinking score and student performance on the clinical-simulation component. There was a significant (P =.04) positive association between a strong science-course background and critical thinking score, which might be useful in predicting a student's ability to perform in areas where critical thinking is of paramount importance, such as clinical competencies, and to guide candidateselection for respiratory care programs.