To have critical thinking skills is very important for all professions such as nursing that need to fight with complex situations with regard to taking correct and rapid decisions in practice and adapting to changes. This study was performed as a descriptive study to determine the levels of critical thinking and factors affecting the critical thinking in nursing students. Students attending to the Gulhane Military Medical Academy School of Nursing at the undergraduate level (n=388) constituted the universe of the study. The entire universe was tried to reach, however only 314 students could be included. Demographic data form and “California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory” were used to collect data and measure the critical thinking tendencies of students, respectively. The mean inventory score of the students was 215.45±19.08. There were no statistically significant differences between the classes of the students regarding sub-dimensions of analyticity, self-confidence, truth-seeking and systematicity. There were statistically significant differences between the classes of the students with regard to sub-dimensions of open-mindedness (p=0.012) and inquisitiveness (p=0.004).
Keywords: Critical thinking, nursing students
