The Instructional Design and Evaluation of a Multimedia Program to Help Mentors Develop Skills in Assessing Student Nurses' Clinical Performance

Docherty, Charles (2002) The Instructional Design and Evaluation of a Multimedia Program to Help Mentors Develop Skills in Assessing Student Nurses' Clinical Performance. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

The major organisational change accompanying the introduction of Project 2000 and the incorporation of nurse education into higher education exacerbated perennial concerns over the validity and reliability of student nurses' clinical assessments. Problems identified in the literature review were lack of consistency and poor reliability of ratings, instructor subjectivity, questionable validity of assessment tools, poorly utilised assessment criteria and reluctance of assessors to negatively rate or fail students. These were partly attributed to difficulties inherent in clinical assessment, and partly to the inadequate preparation of assessors. Further analysis of the assessment of clinical practice identified contradictory and confusing terminology, such as competence and performance. The process of assessing practice was found to be devoid of an agreed theoretical basis. The historical origins of mentorship and its introduction to nurse education with Project 2000 were explored, with evidence from the literature suggesting that the attitudes, knowledge, anxiety, and self-efficacy of mentors can influence how well their role is performed, in particular, their assessment of students. Meanwhile, a revolution in learning technology offered multimedia as a potential solution to the logistical difficulties of providing a quaility preparation for mentors. Evaluative studies suggested that computers had the potential to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of learning, while accommodating different learning styles. Potential advantages such as providing consistency in educational approach, increasing access to information for those unable to attend formal courses and presenting an educational approach philosophically consistent with liberal curricula were identified. Aims: • To develop and formatively evaluate the multimedia program, 'A Mentor's Guide to Assessing Student Nurses', that facilitates the acquisition of skills in the observational assessment of student nurses' performance. • To evaluate the educational effectiveness of this program through comparing the multimedia method with the traditional teaching method in a randomised controlled trial. Discussio: The 'novelty value' of the computer program may have positively influenced the effectiveness of the educational intervention for the experimental group. This was argued to be a motivational factor integral to multimedia, distinguishing it from traditional teaching methods. The failure of self-efficacy improvement to reach statistical significance between groups was considered a function of instrument design and small sample size. It was concluded on the basis of the questionnaire results and telephone interview findings that the program improved mentors' assessment potential, most evident in the statistically significant improvement in attitudes. The research design was satisfactory in providing a representative sample to study and the 'assessment potential' questionnaire was user-friendly, producing data of value. In developing the computer program, the inexact science of performance assessment and the difficult nature of mentoring were affirmed. Problems with clinical assessment were difficult to completely resolve, but it was possible to achieve a balanced approach based on the available literature. The computer package developed and tested in this study shows that assessment can be effectively taught to mentors using a 'stand-alone' package and that this approach should be included in the range of methods used for teaching mentors how to assess. This is different to computer-mediated communication that typifies networked applications, where learning is a function of the vagaries of the student-teacher relationship. In standalone programs, an instructional design can be created with proven capability in achieving high levels of human-computer interaction that can deliver repeated quality assured learning in a way that computer-mediated communication approaches couldn't. There is potential for convergence, achieving the best of both worlds: computer-mediated communications courses have been introducing more 'e-tivities' in a departure from sole reliance on dialogue and stand-alone applications can link with readily updated webpages and web-tools such as discussion groups. The second approach was taken with the latest version of 'A Mentor's Guide to Assessing Student Nurses'. Recommendations Nurse Education • Implementation of 'A Mentor's Guide to Assessing Student Nurses' now by marketing it to mentors and lecturers, packaging as part of a level three Scotcats module, and using it as the basis of a UKCC course for mentors on assessing students. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Additional Information: Adviser: Ray Jones
• Keywords: Health education, Nursing, Instructional design, Educational technology
• Date of Award: 2002
• Depositing User: Enlighten Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2002-76222
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 19 Nov 2019 16:26
• Last Modified: 19 Nov 2019 16:26
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/76222