Abstract:
This paper reports on a study investigating the relationship of nursing students' approaches to learning and processing of information, science content knowledge, ability in interpreting and organising clinical data (nursing assessment), logical reasoning ability with the accuracy and quality of the nursing diagnosis made in a simulated diagnostic reasoning task. 169 second year pre-service nursing students participated in the study. Results of path analyses indicated a set of pathways from surface approach through nursing assessment to low quality nursing diagnosis that reflected less competent diagnostic reasoning; and a second set from content knowledge through logical reasoning to higher quality nursing diagnosis that reflected more competent diagnostic reasoning. The implications of these findings for nurse education are discussed.