Abstract
The 1988 revised version of the Inquiry Mode Questionnaire by Harrison and Bramson was administered to 216 nursing students in the post-RN baccalaureate programs at two universities. The first purpose was to validate further this measure of relative preference in forced-choice format for five main ways of thinking, Synthesist, Idealist, Pragmatist, Analyst, and Realist. Significant differences among thinking styles on analysis of variance with repeated measures supported the tests's predictive validity. There were negative intercorrelations (≥ – 0.40) between opposing styles such as Synthesist/Pragmatist, Synthesist/Realist, Pragmatist/Analyst, and Idealist/Realist. Ninety percent (81 of 90 items) were significant in discriminating among the styles of thinking. The second purpose to ascertain whether nurses show a particular thinking-style preference was confirmed. Nurses in this study preferred the Idealist (37.5%), Realist (36.1%), and Analyst (31%) styles of thinking.
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