A study of the relationships among student nurse epistemology, critical thinking, and clinical decision -making

This research was a mixed methods study that examined the nature of the relationships among student nurse epistemology, critical thinking, and clinical decision making. This research used the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal tool to identify students with varying levels of critical thinking abilities and the Epistemic Belief Inventory to identify students with varying levels of epistemic reasoning. A case study method was used to explore how student nurse epistemologies (beliefs about knowledge) influence their critical thinking and clinical decision making.;The results of the study revealed that student nurses with absolutist epistemologies and high levels of critical epistemologies compartmentalize their thinking. In addition, compartmentalization leads to emotional exhaustion and ritualized clinical decision making.;Another finding of this research was that student nurse critical thinking and personal epistemologies are heavily dependent on context. This study disputes the developmental notion of global and sequential epistemic advances. In addition, this research calls into question the use of a single quantitative measure of competent clinical decision making.