Nursing Students’ Self-Motivation, Attitude Toward Communicative Language Teaching, and Learning Style Preferences Concerning Medical English Language Skills

Abstract

The nursing profession requires medical English for communication in their working environment. Hence, this study intends to reveal self-motivation, attitude toward communicative language teaching (CLT), and learning style preferences concerning medical English language skills among Saudi nursing students. This study encompassed all nursing students enrolled in the first year of the undergraduate nursing program in Abha (n=80) and Muhayil (n=80) female campuses of King Khalid University (KKU), Saudi Arabia. A self-structured online questionnaire was distributed to those students for data collection. The overall Cronbach’s alpha score for the questionnaire used was 0.928. Concerning medical English language skills, 76.2% of nursing students strongly desired to improve their skills. 82.5% liked to develop their skills through communicative activities. More than 70% preferred learning medical terminologies using visual aids, mind maps, and puzzles. 74.2% could easily remember medical terminologies by listening to medical lectures. Around 75% preferred to learn medical texts and terms through group activities and teaching that information to their friends and family. Nursing students’ self-motivation showed a moderate positive relationship with their attitude toward CLT and learning style preferences. Nursing students of KKU were highly motivated and showed a positive attitude towards CLT concerning medical English language skills. Those also preferred visual, auditory, and tactile learning styles for learning medical English language skills. Besides, nursing students' self-motivation is positively related to their attitude toward CLT and visual, auditory, and tactile learning style preferences concerning medical English language skills. Saudi nursing schools should continue their strategies to enhance students' medical English language skills, which improve their academic and clinical performance.