Nurse training: How much of it is education?

Abstract

To FIND an answer to this question the authors compared five teaching methods in a 3-yr hospital-based course hoping to determine which methods gave the best results. The methods used were: 1. reading, 2. traditional lecture, 3. audio-lecture, 4. programmed instruction, 5. multi-media. Subjects were tested at four different stages during the study. First, the pretest which preceded (2) the treatment stage. Immediate recall followed right on top of the treatment (3). This was followed up three weeks and eleven weeks later as short term retention and long term retention respectively (4). At the immediate recall stage multi-media was found to be the most effective method with programmed instruction and reading each only slight less so. Audio and lecture methods were only marginally better than the control (no treatment) group. No additional differences occurred in subjects’ performances at the short term or long term retention stages. This has implications for nurse educators who would consider changing their teaching methods. Especially is this so now when there is an increasing volume of commercial learning packages being produced for nurse education. Unfortunately there is very little credible research available, at any level of education, to give guidance on the relative usefulness of teaching methods. Hartley(‘) examines 112 studies comparing programmed instruction with traditional teaching methods and dismissed most of them as biased or lacking in the scientific principles of research. Campeau(4) reviewed 1200 studies on the use of audio-visual media in adult education. The vast majority of these studies failed to meet several screeningcriteria and thus were not accepted to support the claims made in them about a number of testing methods.