Problem-Solving Abilities of The Nursing Students Studying in Integrated Education: A Follow-up Study

Purpose: This research has been done to evaluate the year by year progress of nursing students studying in Integrated Education. Method: This research has been conducted to the students of nursing department of the Faculty of Health Sciences. Integrated Education was started in 2004-2005 academic year. The population of the research consisits of 58 nursing students who started their education in this academic year by filling an annual form completely. The data has been collected with Personel Information Form and Problem Solving Inventory. The scale has three sub-dimensions as trust in problem solving ability, being volunteer/avoidant and self-control. They score minimal 32 and maximum 192 points. High score on the scale shows that students perceive problem solving insufficiently. Results: Average scores of Problem Solving Scale among the students are: 92.46 +/- 20.91 in the first measurement, 80.56 +/- 22.79 in the second measurement, 78.05 +/- 26.00 in the third measurement and 80.75 +/- 28.39 in the fourth measurement. The difference among the measurements has been found statistically significant(F=4.425, p=0.005). When the difference between the average points with respect to sub-dimensions of the scale was examined carefully, a year by year progress was observed in volunteer/avoidant (F=4.89, p=0.003) and in self-control (F=4.63, p=0.005), but a statistically-significant difference was not observed among the averages of the subdimension-trust in problem solving ability (p>0.05). Conclusion: According to the findings from the research, students' problem-solving skills, especially in the first three years can be said to show an improvement.