Correlation between critical thinking dispositions and self-esteem in nursing students

BACKGROUND: Critical thinking has been acknowledged as a key component of clinical decision-making and professional competency. Therefore, it is of great importance to reflect on how critical thinking is acquired and investigate its determinants, including self-esteem, in nursing education. The present study was thus to assess the correlation between critical thinking and self-esteem in nursing students. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This descriptive correlational study was fulfilled in 2019 on 276 nursing students selected via the random sampling method. For this purpose, Ricketts’ Critical Thinking Disposition Questionnaire and Eysenck's Self-Esteem Scale were employed to collect the data, which were then analyzed using the SPSS Statistics (ver. 22) software along with independent-samples t-test, Pearson correlation coefficient, and one-way analysis of variance, considering the significance level of P < 0.05. RESULTS: The study findings showed a significant correlation between critical thinking and self-esteem (r = 0.529, P < 0.001) as well as self-esteem and critical thinking dispositions, that is, commitment, perfectionism, and creativity (r = 0.40, P < 0.001). Moreover, these dispositions had a significantly increasing trend during various academic years, but the difference was not significant with regard to perfectionism (P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Given the positive correlation between self-esteem and critical thinking, commitment, perfectionism, and creativity in nursing students, it is essential to develop self-esteem skills in such students, using appropriate approaches to boost self-esteem as one of the important missions of higher education systems. As well, a lack of perfectionism during academic years confirms that it is possible that determinants other than educational environments, for example, families, are involved. Therefore, managers are suggested to hold meetings with parents and nursing students.