Effectiveness of Teaching Methods : Comparative Outcomes

Abstract

Background: Instructional methods play an important role in developing nursing education. The objective of this study was to compare the effectiveness of lecture, small group discussion and mixed method to teach childhood diarrhea topic among 2nd year Proficiency Certificate Level (PCL) nursing students.
 Methods: Over a one year period, 60 2nd year PCL nursing students were divided into three groups and provided educational sessions on childhood diarrhoea. Three methods; a lecture, small group discussions and mixed methods (lecture+ small group discussion) were used separately. At the beginning, students were informed about a research study with process and questionnaires on the content of childhood diarrhea were administered to each student for pre-test. After the completion of sessions, post-test was done. They also completed a session evaluation ranged from 1(Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). Classroom observation result was collected by using "A 5-Point Likert Scale" ranging from 1(poor) to 5 (excellent) by the observer with feedback. The collected data were entered in MS Excel and analyzed using latest version of SPSS.
 Results: Lecture method was most significantly effective for gaining factual knowledge while small group discussion was most significantly effective for gaining insightful knowledge. However mixed method is most significantly effective for learning both the procedural and insightful knowledge.
 Conclusion: Nursing students learning about childhood diarrhoea preferred a mixed method of lecture and small group discussions (SGDs) over traditional lecture or discussion in groups.