Nursing students learn how to assess patient's problems through the professional core course of health assessment and physical examination. The purpose of the study was to explore the effects of self-directed learning program on students’ learning in a health assessment and physical examination course.
Methods:
An unequal control group of quasi-experiment was employed to evaluate the effects of learning outcomes, including the self-directed learning readiness, cognitive strategies, the learning motivation, communication ability, and teaching satisfaction. There were 41 students in the control group who received traditional teaching method including lecturing and demonstration, and those students in the treatment group (N=48) received strategy of self-directed learning, including online-learning and evaluation, role playing, and scenario simulation. A purposive sample was recruited from a university of Science and Technology in central Taiwan, those sophomores who were taking the course of the physical examination were invited to participate in the study. Structured questionnaires were used for data collection. Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) models were used to examine differences of learning outcomes between groups.
Results:
The results showed that after controlling the influence of the pre-test score, the intervention could effectively improve students' self-directed learning (creative learning, favorite learning), learning-motivation (goal-oriented, work value, expectation success, test anxiety), cognitive strategies (total score, refinement strategy, recitation strategy and monitoring strategy). Significant improvements of the pretest and post-test of the total score and sub-scale scores of the Interpersonal skills were found in the experimental group. The score of course learning satisfaction was significantly higher in the experimental group than those of the control group.
Conclusion:
The course may provide as an example for those who are interested in teaching physical examination to nursing students in the future, and the study findings may also provide evidence for further curriculum refinement and research development. Outcome based course design may improve students' learning-motivation, physical assessment and communication skills. Students may also be inspired to learn by themselves in the future.