Læringsassistenter ufarliggjør naturvitenskapelige fag i sykepleie: En kvalitativ undersøkelse av et didaktisk eksperiment

Abstract

The high failure rate and low average grade on the anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry (APB) exam creates concern about whether nursing students have sufficient knowledge in bioscience subjects. In one of Norway’s major nursing schools, second-year students were employed as learning assistants to develop, implement and evaluate APB teaching in compulsory study groups. In this chapter, we seek to investigate hallmarks of the learning assistants’ teaching style and better understand about how they teach AFB in compulsory seminar groups, which can in turn help nursing students learn natural sciences. The data is from meetings (15 hours) in which learning assistants, together with the teacher, planned and evaluated teaching in compulsory study groups. The meetings were taped and transcribed (148 pages) and analyzed with content analysis. The study shows that the learning assistants’ teaching is student-active, oriented toward the exam and clinical practice, and playful. We conclude that the learning assistants taught AFB in ways that can reduce the fear of science and impart a sense of ownership of the subject, thus making it easier to learn. Skilled second-year students can be a resource for raising the level of knowledge in biosciences among nursing students.