Nursing Students' Experiences with Problem Based Learning: A Teaching Strategy Applied in Community Health Course
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- Category: Vol. 79, June 2011
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Nursing Students' Experiences with Problem Based Learning: A Teaching Strategy Applied in Community Health Course,SAMER E. ABD EL-RAOUF and AMEL I. AHMED
Abstract
One method of active learning strategy is problem-based learning (PBL), which is a learner-centered educational method. The Egyptian strategy for the development of higher education is the upgrading of teaching approaches and addressing the needs and performance of students. Accordingly, it was important to investigate the experience of students who exposed to PBL as a new teaching strategy. A descriptive study design with a mixed quantitative and qualitative tech-nique was used. All first year nursing students (n=317) who studied the community health course included in the quanti-tative part of the study, while only 50 students approved to participate at the qualitative part. Adopted students' evaluation sheet and student opinion sheet were used to collect quantitative data. While semi-structured interview was used for the qual-itative part. Results indicated that students expressed positive opinion regarding the PBL as a teaching method. Most of students agreed and strongly agreed that PBL provides the opportunity to correlate theories to community health problems (48.5% and 36.3%), and to learn utilization of library and internet database (40.1% and 49.5%) respectively. On the other hand, results showed inconsistency of students' views about the physical resources and structures PBL sessions. The majority of students approved that tutorial time, guidance, and bibliographies were adequate. Other few students were unsatisfied with accessibility of learning resources and found work hours of computer lab to be inadequate.
Students mentioned that PBL foster self-learning, critical thinking, communicate collaborative work skills. Generally, they showed enthusiasm in using PBL in the future. The study recommended using PBL in other community health courses such as community health nursing, and epidemiology. The physical structured and resources should be redesigned to fulfill the requirements of PBL.