Sharon Johnson

The Effects of Interactive Learning Strategies on Clinical Performance Among On-Campus Junior BSN Nursing Students

Sharon T. Johnson, PhD, RN, FCN

Clinical Assistant Professor

Lead Instructor, Clinical Nursing Foundations

College of Nursing and Health Innovation

First year junior nursing students tend to have more difficulty utilizing reflective reasoning which facilitates the critical thinking process, and ultimately priority setting in clinical practice. Determining which active learning modalities would be most effective in improving critical thinking and clinical decision making supports Kolb’s theory regarding the concepts of student engagement and interactive learning. Through the evaluation of different active learning methods, nursing faculty would be able to identify gaps of knowledge regarding students’ clinical performance along with improving the cognitive process of learning and student success. Therefore, the use of active learning strategies could result in the implementation of pedagogic changes in order to enhance student engagement and retention of course content as well as the connection between theory and clinical practice. For this reason, learning analytics would be useful in identifying the effectiveness of interactive educational strategies concerning clinical performance in pre-licensure Junior nursing students.

The study procedures include implementing active learning methods such as virtual simulation (vSim) patient scenarios and other game-based learning platforms (e.g. Kahoot) where percentage scores are acquired to determine the effectiveness of each instructional method regarding theory and/or experiential learning. The first clinical performance assessment (computer-driven high fidelity simulations) is completed by faculty and/or peer evaluations through direct observations of the students’ ability to make safe clinical decisions regarding patient care. The second evaluation method for clinical performance is completed by standardized patients participating in the medication administration simulation lab. Each standardized patient evaluates students’ on the process of safe medication administration practices. Then data for each interactive learning method will be analyzed to determine the overall effects on the students’ clinical performance.

Due to the organization of the course content and learning experiences for this Junior 1 nursing course, data are currently being collected and analyzed. Therefore, preliminary results for clinical performance revealed that first year Junior nursing students have challenges with recognizing nursing practices related to proper identification of patient health issues and health care prioritization for improving patient outcomes. Demonstrating the proper procedure and/or usage of equipment when administering injectable medications (e.g. heparin and insulin) were also identified as areas requiring improvement. Despite these results, the game-based interactive learning data revealed, students were capable of comprehending majority of the key concepts related to nursing practice and patient care.

J. T. Dellinger

Hi Sharon, I enjoyed listening to your project and getting some more depth after Friday. How did students react to the game-based learning? Do they like Kahoot? Are there some weaknesses to it? Are you able to export any data (such as clickstream) that might be useful when combined with other learning data?
- Sharon Johnson
  
  Thank you Justin and the students really had fun using the Kahoot game. However, it was challenging with some questions because of the character limitations as well as there was no option to use questions where more than one answer was required for the question (select all that apply). So with this application I was not able to use these type questions. Yes, there are options to export data obtained…..such as in Excel spreadsheet.
Alex Hunnicutt

Did the students seem to enjoy these activities? Or was it perceived as work? Or just something in their way?
- Sharon Johnson
  
  The students verbalized how much they enjoyed the game-based learning and the simulation activities. Students expressed how much they preferred the hands on experience during the simulation activities because of the preparation when caring for “real” patients. On the other hand some students have expressed feeling overwhelmed by the course workload….including clinical lab preparation.
Regina Urban

Sharon, thanks for sharing your project with us. I think shaping the clinical reason of the next generation of nurses is challenging and I appreciate your use of technology with the students to try to stimulate their thinking. Did the students express familiarity with Kahoot from any previous classes? How many students could use the Kahoot platform at one time? Did you find it difficult to learn the program or to integrate into your plans for class time?
- Sharon Johnson
  
  Thank you Regina and as for the use of the technology only one student has used the Kahoot game when working in the ISD (but not in another course). When investigating this game system I did not read anything about a limited number of users and I had approximately 70 - 80 students to use the application in one class setting. Also, it is very user friendly…not difficult to learn or incorporate in your class time at all.
Cindy

I love this project, but also wonder how students responded to the games. In the ESL world, especially in intensive expensive programs, there’s a big debate about games vs learning activities - do you see the same with the nursing students?
- Sharon Johnson
  
  Thank you Cindy and the students really enjoyed the game. Student engagement was elevated more than I thought it would be by using the game and they made requests about using this versus other quizzing methods I have used in the past. I think using games is a great way for nursing students to learn because in this instance, the students became more involved which motivated more discussion about the topic….especially when an incorrect answer was selected. This gave me more opportunity to revisit information that may not have been very clear from the lecture.