A Description of a Web-Based Educational Tool for Understanding the PICO Framework in Evidence-Based Practice With a Citation Ranking System

Asking a well-defined clinical question has revealed itself as a learned skill. Asking a "good" question is not an innate response to a clinical problem or clinical case but a task that requires insight, critical thinking, and evaluation, as well as grounding in subject-specific background information. To aid in the proficiency of asking an answerable clinical question, a Web-based tool named Accessing and Assessing the Evidence was developed to tutor students in asking such questions. The tool, consisting of two modules, presents the principles of evidence-based practice question formulation in the first module and permits users to compare their critical opinions of article citations and abstracts to those of their peers and experts in the second module. Initial findings suggest that the Accessing and Assessing the Evidence tool may be a valuable independent learning tool for undergraduate nursing students by providing question structure guidance with practical learning scenarios.