A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy for the Department of Curriculum and Instructional Studies, Faculty of Education at the University of Zululand, 2018. / The continuous protest from various quarters of society about the weakening education standard are a concern. Chess has been found to be a solution to remedy this problem in many countries through studies testing its effectiveness on the learners. However, very little is said about the teachers who are key in the success of this integration. This study aimed at getting the perspectives of the stakeholders regarding the incorporation of chess into the curriculum in the four subjects in the Foundation Phase, namely, isiZulu, English, Mathematics and Life skills. This qualitative design research looks at the perspectives of the stakeholders about the impact of incorporating chess into the curriculum practice through the Tsogo Sun Moves for Life programme piloted in the King Cetshwayo district. Through interviews, observations and document analysis, this study acquired the insights of 14 teachers who work as Tsogo Sun Moves for Life facilitators in schools under the programme, the district official who is tasked with ensuring that the curriculum is well delivered in schools, and the Tsogo Sun Moves for Life co-ordinator who assist the facilitators in incorporating chess into the curriculum. The study reveals that teachers find chess to be helpful as it helps the learners learn better while having fun, their attention span is increased, and they tend to concentrate better when chess is integrated. However, the teachers face many challenges as they struggle to merge chess into the curriculum, from those who view it as an add- on detached from the curriculum, and therefore see it as additional workload for them. The language used in the chess instruction appeared to be a challenge as the chess resources are not written in the learners’ home language.

The primary focus of nursing education in the 21st century is to graduate students with well-developed critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills. This descriptive case study explored the perceptions of 6 faculty and 6 unit staff nurses concerning the assessment of critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills of nursing students in the clinical setting. Benner's novice to expert theory served as the conceptual framework for the research. The guiding research questions focused on faculty and staff perceptions concerning unit staff nurses' level of preparedness to assess the critical thinking and clinical reasoning ability of nursing students, and explored how faculty and unit staff nurses perceived the process of evaluating nursing students' clinical reasoning and critical thinking skills in the clinical setting. Data were collected using semi structured interview questions, then coded and analyzed following Creswell's approach. This analysis identified six themes: (a) lack of consistency, (b) faculty and staff clinical expectations of students, (c) barriers to clinical education, (d) faculty and staff differences in educational definitions, (e) faculty and staff comfort level with students, and (f) resources needed for clinical education. Learning how faculty and staff nurses assess student nurses' ability to demonstrate effective clinical reasoning and critical thinking skills can positively impact social change in nursing education on the local and state level by informing best practice in how critical thinking and clinical reasoning are taught and assessed in nursing education. This facilitates graduating nurses who are prepared to deliver patient care that affect positive outcomes.

Critical-thinking is an essential skill that graduate nurses need to make sound clinical decisions. While traditional lecturing is the method most commonly used in nursing education, incorporating problem-based learning (PBL) into nursing curricula has been suggested as a better option for students' learning of theory and practice. The purpose of this study was to explore the difference in critical-thinking and problem-solving skills between nursing students taught using PBL versus those taught with traditional classroom lectures. A quasi-experimental approach, with cognitive learning theory as the foundation, was used to compare the results of an Assessment Technologies Institute (ATI) Comprehensive Predictor posttest in the control group, taught using the traditional learning method, and the experimental group, taught using PBL. Two-way ANOVA was used to analyze the effect of 2 independent variables: archived ATI Fundamentals Nurse exam proxy pretest scores, divided into low and high groups, and control or experimental group assignment, on the posttest scores of 192 nursing students at the study site. The results of the study showed that the main effect of the treatment, PBL vs. non-PBL, was significant, F(1, 191) = 116.77, p < .001, and the main effect for pretest groups was significant, F(1, 191) = 121.79, p < .001. The interaction effect was also significant, F(1, 191) = 8.04, p = .005, indicating that the effect of PBL was greater for nursing students in the low pretest group. The results of this study provide the premise for recommendations for nurse educators regarding the use of alternative teaching methods. The study may promote social change by providing preliminary research results to the local site that may contribute to improving the quality of nurse education.

Schools of nursing educators are faced with redesigning nursing education to meet the complexity of implementing communication and patient- centered care to improve patient safety. This qualitative case study addressed the problem that teaching communication and patient- centered care were not threaded throughout curriculum, which left many new graduates nurses unprepared. The purpose of this study was to understand classroom experiences of new graduate nurses to meet performance outcomes. The research questions focused on understanding the classroom experiences of new graduates' of a nursing program by assessing the two concepts and how to address preparatory practices. The target populations were new graduates' of nursing programs who had been working in a hospital for less than 1 year and are registered nurses. Emergent themes regarding the new graduates classroom experiences strengths and areas of improvements were extracted from the 10 participants interview questions, and practice experiences from the journal recordings were manually coded, validated , triangulated, and member checked with eight themes that emerged from face-to-face interviews, theoretical frameworks, and the current literature. The researcher determined that the new graduates' nurses were self-motivated to implement communication and patient centered care, however incorporating the two concepts in the class instructions would be a safer preparatory experience. This study may contribute to positive social change through raising awareness regarding the overall standard of nursing education, which may lead to a reevaluation of nursing curricula and teaching strategies so that new graduate nurses may master the complexity of clinical practices resulting in positive performance outcomes

There is a paucity of occupational therapy literature related to the professional development process that occurs when students participate in immersive, international servant leadership experiences in developing countries. A scarcity of literature exists on how such culturally rich experiences can influence the development of the participating students’ dispositional critical thinking and cultural competency skill sets. This mixed methods study depicts how a 3-week servant leadership experience in Zambia, Africa, measured the acquisition of dispositional critical thinking and cultural competency skill sets in novice to experienced occupational therapy students. Moreover, this study infuses a constructivist grounded theory approach to uncover a holistic understanding of the professional development process that occurred for the participating students over a 3-week immersion experience in Zambia. This study highlights how a hands-on servant leadership experience in Zambia contributed to the acquisition of professional development and problem-solving skills and cultural responsiveness for students who were trained in westernized health care practices. The participants demonstrated statistically significant increases in their critical thinking skills with medium effect sizes in truth-seeking, inquisitiveness, analyticity, systematicity, confidence, and maturity of judgment. In addition, the participants demonstrated statistically significant increases in cultural competency skills with medium to very large effect sizes in cultural awareness, cultural knowledge, cultural skills, cultural encounters, and cultural desires. The qualitative strand of the study revealed the professional growth of the students during the experience through the themes that emerged: “resilient occupational therapy lens” and “empowered occupational therapy students.” Furthermore, this mixed methods study provides a Servant Leadership Professional Development Model to illustrate the transformational professional development process that students underwent that is supported by the mixed methods data findings.

The problem investigated by the researcher relates to the development of critical thinking knowledge and skill in nursing students. Traditional approaches to educating nursing students have been used in the past to educate nursing students, but newly licensed registered nurses still have difficulty with critical thinking knowledge and skills. The principal investigator evaluated the use of an alternative method of teaching learning to foster and develop critical thinking knowledge and skills. One suggestion for teaching learning methods is the use of human patient simulation. A pretest/posttest experimental design was used to investigate critical thinking knowledge and skills after using human patient simulation in second semester nursing students. Nursing students from a northern California university were approached to participate in the study in the fall of 2011 and spring of 2012. The WGCTA Form D and the Lasater Clinical Judgment Rubric were used as a method to determine any changes in critical thinking knowledge and skills. No simulation. This study adds to the body of knowledge relating to the use of human patient simulation.

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The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the patterns of Saudi Arabian elementary female science teachers’ understanding and knowledge of critical thinking, as well as their perceptions towards critical thinking guidelines in the course of their lesson plans. The research questions that guided this study were: 1. How female elementary science teachers perceive the role of critical thinking in science education? 2. How do female science teachers perceive students’ abilities to use critical thinking skills in the classroom? 3. How do female science teachers incorporate and implement critical thinking as an essential objective in lesson planning? This research contains background information about student centered learning and developing critical thinking skills in the classroom. It is becoming increasingly apparent that critical thinking is an important aspect of intellectual development among students. Critical thinking is a crucial skill for students, especially in the STEM fields where problem solving is a large part of the discipline. The sample of this study was three Saudi Arabian elementary female science teachers. I conducted semi-structured interviews and used documents to collect data as well as answer the research questions. The findings revealed that all participants believed of the importance of using critical thinking skills in the classroom. However, the participants had a lack understanding and perception of incorporating students’ critical thinking in their lesson plans.

Research suggests a significant negative relationship exists between analytical and critical thinking and epistemically unwarranted beliefs. The present study aimed to examine this relationship by measuring preference for and engagement in analytical and critical thinking, then comparing these variables with belief in conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and paranormal phenomena. The quantitative cross-sectional observational study was conducted without intervention, collecting multi-purpose data. Email invitations recruited participants (N=112) from small and large businesses, organisations, schools, independent churches, and interest groups in alternative medicine and pseudoscience. Participants were Swedish speaking and 18 years or older. Relationships between variables were tested with Pearson’s correlation coefficient. The result showed significant negative correlations between beliefs in pseudoscience and the variables rationality, rational favorability, rational ability, and engagement. In addition, rational ability had a significant negative correlation with paranormal beliefs. The result did not show significant correlations between the measured cognitive variables and belief in conspiracy theories. The results suggest that individuals disengaged from, or lacking preference for, analytical and critical thinking processes are more likely to reject established science and instead endorse pseudoscience and paranormal beliefs. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of how cognitive traits and skills are connected to epistemically unwarranted beliefs. Future research can further explore these cognitive traits and skills, because they are crucial in health promotion efforts to mitigate epistemically unwarranted beliefs. Facilitating enhanced learning environments, supporting health promotion initiatives, and enabling effective health communication will cultivate reflective, empowered, and ultimately healthier members of society.

This purpose of this study was to determine how students perceive and experience critical thinking in an undergraduate business curriculum and whether or not those perceptions and experiences are influenced by gender and academic discipline. This was a qualitative study that used focus groups and individual interviews to explore student experiences. There were a total of 22 participants, all of whom participated in a focus group. Of the 22 participants, seven participated in individual interviews. Focus group participants represented 11 majors at the business school and were split almost evenly along binary gender lines. The majority of interview participants were female, management information systems majors. Three major themes emerged from the data: critical thinking is a process, critical thinking is aided by interest in the subject matter, and technology use impacts critical thinking. Findings indicate that critical thinking is influenced by interest in the subject matter more than it is by academic discipline; however, findings linked to the influence of gender are inconclusive. Additional research is needed to more fully examine the influence of gender on student perception of critical thinking and how it intersects with academic discipline. Multiple implications for higher education practice, particularly as related to the Business School, emerged, including examination of pedagogical strategies, real-world applicability of course content, and the inclusion of experiential learning in the curriculum. / Educational Leadership