Critical thinking, educational preparation, and development of moral judgment among selected groups of practicing nurses.

The focus of this descriptive study was the relationship between critical thinking, educational preparation, and level of moral judgment in 79 practicing nurses. The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Test was used to measure critical thinking; information on the participating nurses' educational preparation was obtained from a personal information sheet. Moral judgment was measured by Rest's Defining Issues Test. The hypothesis that critical thinking would be positively related to moral judgment was tested by Pearson product moment correlation; the obtained coefficient of .5326 was significant at the .001 level. The hypothesis that there would be a difference between professional and technical nurses' moral judgments was tested through a one-way analysis of variance. The F ratio (F [1,77] = 9.6) was significant beyond the .01 level. Data also supported the hypothesis that critical thinking and educational preparation would predict greater variance in moral judgment than either variable alone, which was tested through multiple regression analysis (F [2,75] = 18.3, p = .01). Critical thinking and education together accounted for 32.9 percent of the variance in moral judgment. Implications of the findings are discussed for nursing research, practice, and education.