Paper
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Nursing Students and Faculty Perceptions of the Usefulness and Ease of Use of Personal Digital Assistants
Kathleen Williamson, PhD, RN, Nursing, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA
| Learning Objective #1: Understand faculty and student preceptions of PDA use. |
| Learning Objective #2: Discuss ways to intergrate PDA technology into a nursing program. |
Before integrating any type of technology into programs of nursing, it is important to gain an understanding of student and faculty perceptions regarding usefulness and ease of use of the technology proposed. The study conducted was expected to determine if faculty and students find using a PDA useful and easy to use in finding information to problem solve in the classroom and clinical setting as well as general attitudes to computer use. A convenience sample of 281 traditional undergraduate nursing students (N=265) and faculty (N=16) was obtained from a university in the southeastern Florida region. Data were obtained with the use of a demographic and Likert survey. The overall findings indicated the students and faculty perceive PDA technology to be useful and easy to use. 83% of faculty and students perceive PDA technology would be useful in the classroom and clinical setting. Pearson r and Kendal Tau correlations demonstrate strong correlations between overall usefulness and ease of use among the faculty and students. 63% of faculty and students perceive PDA technology would be easy to use. The overall attitude toward computer use was positive with 60% of faculty and students admitting they could not live without their computer. 91% of faculty and students noted that they access the Internet 1 - 20 or more times a day. Continuing research on identifying student perceptions of the usefulness and ease of use of PDAs and attitudes toward computer use will benefit Colleges of Nursing who would like to integrate PDA technology into the classroom and clinical setting.