Snippets: Tools for Teaching on Two Levels

The purpose of this study was to use Snippets as a modality for faculty to augment and enhance learning in a controlled environment before the real time lecture occurred and to determine whether there is a difference in student satisfaction between didactic real-time presentations and didactic recorded 15-to-30 minute sessions with faculty present in the classroom while the recorded session was presented.  

After a review of each item was complete, statistical analysis of the responses was performed. Descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, standard error, range and confidence intervals) were measured.  Nonparametric Fischer Exact Test compared numbers of responses on the three satisfaction scales. No significant difference existed between questions p = 0.89 with an established level of significance <0.05. This exploratory study sought to determine if students preferred the use of Snippets over regular didactic lecture.  A one-sample t-test was calculated to detect differences between student satisfaction with Monday lectures vs. Thursday lectures p = .03 with alpha established at < 0.05.  The result of this pilot study was that there was no statistically significant difference between student satisfactions between the augmented and non-augmented lectures.  Students appeared to have no preference to lectures using Snippets or without, and they were satisfied and used the Snippets as additional study tools.

Follow-up focus sessions of the same group of undergraduate students provided further insight into the use of Snippets to augment learning. Themes emerging from the focus sessions were that the lectures were high quality and it didn’t matter if they were pre-recorded or not, as long as the faculty was present and could stop the lecture and answer the questions or clarify difficult concepts.  A last theme was the need to have access to the Snippets for use throughout their nursing education experience. The Snippets were made available to students.