Strategies to overcome obstacles in the facilitation of critical thinking in nursing education

M.Cur.Critical thinking is the ideal of a democratic citizenry of a country. Intellectual liberation is the characteristic of the human mind, but it is learned as the individual takes a conscious step into developing his/her critical thinking skills. The virtues of a critical thinker are open-mindedness, intellectual integrity, intellectual empathy, intellectual courage, accommodation for ambiguity, ability to metacognise and acceptance of one's faults in thinking and a willingness to adapt one's beliefs and values. The nursing profession has a dire need for critically thinking practitioners, who will be able to make calculated judgements that brings about life-saving decisions. Nursing education need to adopt an educational approach that integrates development and facilitation of critical thinking in students. Scholars support the ideal of development and facilitation of critical thinking in the classroom as well as in practice. The purpose of this study is to describe strategies that can be used to overcome obstacles in the facilitation of critical thinking in nursing education. To realize this purpose the researcher undertook a qualitative, exploratory, descriptive and contextual research approach (Mouton 1998). The research design is conducted in 2 phases. The recommendations arising out of the study are based on the findings that there is an urgent need to make a concerted effort to facilitate critical thinking in students and further research on how to integrate critical thinking in the curriculum as well as appropriate evaluation of the skills