A Systematic Review of Evidence-Based Teaching Strategies for Nurse Educators

Teaching strategies in nursing education is of vital importance to promote an understanding of knowledge allowing nursing students to compare existing knowledge with new knowledge and to generate a relationship between the two. Teaching strategies are used by nurse educators to teach the nursing students the theoretical content to increase their knowledge outcomes. The teaching strategies used by nurse educators should be based on sound evidence of best practices. Evidence provides nurse educators with research based proof of what works to improve the quality of patient care by implementing best evidence. A number of teaching strategies was found but no systematic reviews were found summarising the best evidence based teaching strategies.

The purpose of the study and the methodology was to identify, critically appraise and synthesise the evidence. The researcher used a systematic review methodology for the study. The PICO question is “What are the best evidence based practice teaching strategies that can be used by nurse educators”? The data bases searched included: MEDLINE, CINAHL, PubMed and Google Scholar. Manual searches were also done and searches were completed with the assistance of librarians.

A total number of n=50 studies were identified as potentially relevant to the study. The number or articles included for critical appraisal were 20. On completion of the critical appraisal n=17 articles were identified for the review. The included studies for the review were n=7 Level 1, systematic reviews and n=10 Level 2, quasi-experimental studies. Three studies were excluded after critical appraisal form two reviewers, appraisal was done independently, and consensus were reached between the two reviewers. The Joanna Briggs Institutes critical appraisal and data extraction instruments were used for the study.

The descriptive data synthesis was done of the included studies as well as a comparison of teaching strategies to determine which one to better than the other one. Although n = 4 of the teaching strategies (concept mapping, internet-based learning, evidence based interactive strategy and cultural competence) significantly increased knowledge, the overall results found that a variety of teaching strategies to be implemented to increase the knowledge of the nursing students.  The different teaching strategies found were (e-learning, concept mapping, internet-based learning, web-based learning, gaming, problem-based learning, case studies, evidence based learning and cultural competence). However, more research is needed to investigate the best use of the different teaching strategies and compare the impact of a variety of teaching strategies on increasing knowledge.