ANALYSIS FOR DEVELOPING INSTRUCTIONAL MEDIA TO IMPROVE 21ST CENTURY SKILLS OF BACCALAUREATE NURSING STUDENTS DURING MATERNAL AND NEWBORN NURSING AND MIDWIFERY PRACTICUM

Abstract

Maternal and newborn nursing and midwifery practicum is an important course for baccalaureate nursing students to practice maternal and newborn care. In the 21st century, nursing instructors should design instructional media focusing on learning processes and needed skills to promote lifelong learning. The aim of this research is to clarify the instructional problems and objectives, identify the learning environment, and determine nursing students’ existing knowledge and skills. Qualitative and quantitative designs were employed. In the quantitative phase, 133 senior nursing students who completed maternal and newborn nursing and midwifery practicum participated in the study. In the qualitative phase, 38 students were purposively selected to participate in four focus groups. Two instruments developed by the researchers were used for data collection: 1) Nursing Student Satisfaction Instrument to evaluate student’s satisfaction toward the clinical manual used in this course and 2) a semi-structure interview guide for conducting focus groups. Qualitative data from focus groups were transcribed verbatim and analyzed by using content analysis technique and quantitative data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics.

The research results reveal that, overall nursing students have a good level of satisfaction with the clinical manual (M=3.90, SD=5.62). Considering each aspect, the highest score is in “Promote Learning Aspect” (M=3.97, SD=1.14, while the lowest score is in “Physical Aspect” (M=3.87, SD=1.57). Three guidelines for redesigning instructional media are 1) benefits of having the manual, 2) problems and obstacles in using the manual, and 3) expectations for future instructional media. The findings provide in-depth understanding about how a clinical manual promotes nursing students’ learning. They can be used to base ideas for designing attractive instructional media with informatics technology which encourages learners to enthusiastically seek new knowledge.