Online vs. face-to-face discussion in a web-based research methods course for postgraduate nursing students: A quasi-experimental study
Section snippets
What is already known about the topic?
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Increasing use is being made of online environments in nursing education.
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Online learning and teaching can be as effective as face-to-face methods in training for specific skills.
What this paper adds
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Online discussions are associated with at least as good results as face-to-face seminar discussions in a web-based postgraduate research methods course for nursing and healthcare students.
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Increased use of online resources, including web sites and discussion boards, is associated with higher student achievement.
Objectives
The aims of the study were to assess whether participation in face-to-face discussion seminars or online asynchronous discussion seminars in a web-based course had different effects on educational attainment, and to examine associations between online activity and attainment.
Design
This was a non-randomised or quasi-experimental design comparing two groups: students who wished to attend face-to-face discussion seminars and students who wished to participate in online discussion seminars. Students were
Recruitment: student characteristics and choice of discussion method
Table 1 shows characteristics of the participating students. Most students (85/114, 75%) were female, and the mean age of 38.5 Y reflected the typical research pathway in Nursing, with experienced health professionals returning to academic study after some years in practice. Most students (68, 60%) were based in Greater Manchester. The collaboration on psychosocial education programme (COPE) had the largest number of participants (48, 42%), followed by nursing studies (26, 23%), clinical nursing
Online vs. face-to-face discussion
This study demonstrates that a research methods course can be delivered to postgraduate healthcare students at least as successfully by an entirely online method in which students participate in online discussion as by a blended method in which students access the teaching material via the web and attend face-to-face seminar discussions. The demand for online discussions increased from 36% in the first year of the web-based course to 44% in the second, and it rose again in subsequent years.
Conclusions
In a web-based postgraduate research methods course, student attainment can be at least as successful through online discussions as face-to-face seminars. Indeed, students studying purely online appeared to perform slightly better than those following a blended route, although factors other than method of learning account for most of the difference. Increases in online activity were associated with higher assignment marks. Face-to-face seminar students who registered more hits in WebCT achieved
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the General Nursing Council Trust whose funding made this study possible.
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