Development of critical thinking in health professions education: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies.

Introduction: While reports of critical thinking exist in the health professions literature, development of critical thinking across a broad range of health-professions students has not been systematically reviewed.

Methods: In this meta-analysis, multiple databases and journals were searched through February 2016 to identify longitudinal studies using standardized tests of critical thinking [California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST), Health Science Reasoning Test (HSRT), and Defining Issues Test (DIT)] in any language. Two reviewers extracted information and collected information regarding primary author, publishing journal, health profession, critical thinking test, and time1/time2 means and standard deviations.