Melbourne Graduate School of Education - Theses

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    Specialist nurses’ engagement with an online bioscience subject: a quantitative analysis
    Connors, Amanda Marie ( 2020)
    Bioscience has been a fundamental element of Australian nursing education programs since the early 1990s. The term bioscience in nursing curricula encompasses elements of physiology, pharmacology, immunology, genetics, biochemistry and pathophysiology. In postgraduate programs the capacity to link bioscience concepts to complex healthcare problems is required for competent and safe specialist nursing practice. The types of teaching and learning technologies utilised to engage specialist nurses with theoretical content in technology-enhanced learning environments are constantly evolving. Technology-enhanced learning involves the contemporaneous use of information technologies to augment teaching and learning. This approach has been widely accepted in various forms; the conventional mode of delivery for postgraduate bioscience subjects is frequently online. There is however, an absence of robust empirical evidence to substantiate the effectiveness of online learning on learning outcomes. In particular, there is a limited understanding of the relationship between students’ learning behaviours, readiness to learn and their academic achievement within technology-enhanced learning environments. The aim of this thesis research program was to establish whether postgraduate specialist nurses’ learning behaviours and readiness to learn, contribute to variability in academic achievement when studying bioscience via a technology-enhanced learning environment. An exploratory descriptive cohort study was conducted in two phases. Learning analytics were used in Phase 1 to identify nurses’ learning behaviours and explore the relationship between these behaviours and academic achievement. Learning behaviours included the total time spent online, the total number of logins, and the total number and frequency of hits on specific content areas. Hit activity was linked to topic summaries, webinars, formative multiple choice questions (MCQs) and online library readings. The endpoint measure of academic achievement was a combination of the cumulative mark for five summative assessments. Based on learning outcomes, participants were categorised into three groups according to their achievement level; high (greater than or equal to 75%), medium (64% to 74%) and low achievers (less than or equal to 63%). In Phase 2 a cross section of students from Phase 1 completed the Self-Directed Readiness Scale for Nursing Education (SDRSNE) survey (Fisher et al., 2001). This instrument was used to measure specialist nurses’ readiness for self-directed learning. Comprised of 40 items, the SDRSNE measured self-management, desire for learning and self-control. Respondents rated each item on a Likert scale with anchors from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to explore the data. Participants in this study accessed online information more than 70,000 times over two semesters. While the average time spent online was over 48 hours there was substantial variability in the number of times individual students logged into the subject, the total time they spent online and the number of hits in content areas. Learning behaviours did not differ according to level of academic achievement, but there were trends in the data that warranted scrutiny. High and medium achieving students had a similar number of logins and hits but high achievers spent more time online. Topic summaries were the most frequently accessed online content followed by webinar recordings, online library readings and practice quizzes. No particular resource or content area was associated with improved learning outcomes or level of academic achievement. Specialist nurses undertaking an online bioscience subject demonstrated improved learning outcomes over time, with high achievers demonstrating the greatest knowledge gain when comparing pre and post quiz results. Mean scores for low, medium and high achievers in four summative MCQ were consistent and similar throughout the semester. Specialist nurses in this study demonstrated high levels of self-reported readiness to undertake self-directed learning and the SDRSNE was shown to be a valid and reliable tool for assessing readiness to learn in this cohort. There was no evidence of a relationship between a specialist nurses SDRSNE and their learning outcomes, and no substantiative relationship between SDRSNE and learning behaviours. Specialist nurses were ready to undertake self-directed online learning and actively engaged with the bioscience subject, achieving learning gains over the semester that demonstrated the effectiveness of the subject. There was however, no clear relationship between learning behaviours and learning outcomes, indicating that the learning of bioscience by specialist nurses is complex and multifactorial. Findings from this research provide valuable insights into online learning as a pedagogical tool for bioscience and nursing education. Future studies designed to test the effectiveness of active, collaborative online learning strategies will enable those involved in education to explore the links between students preferred learning behaviours and learning outcomes. There is opportunity to develop a variety of synchronous and asynchronies learning strategies to accommodate and acknowledge the diverse learning behaviours of students while simultaneously identifying students that may be at risk. Future research should focus on learner to content, learner to instructor and learner to learner interactions in technology-enhanced learning environments. Facilitating nurses’ understanding of bioscience principles is challenging; multiple factors impact upon the mastery of bioscience concepts. The findings from this study offer nurse educators and curriculum designers baseline data to guide and support innovations to shape contemporary student focused online learning.