Promoting learning gains and practical ability of nursing students: the construction and empirical research of inquiry learning community / 中华医学教育探索杂志

Objective:To develop an inquiry learning community centered on learning experience in the course of Nursing Clinical Comprehensive Experiment to verify the influence of this teaching mode on the learning gains and practical ability of nursing students. Methods:A total of 132 undergraduate nursing students form grade 3 in Chongqing Medical University were enrolled. The participants were randomly assigned to a learning community group ( n = 69) and a control group ( n = 63) using Minitab 14.0 software. The students in the learning community group adopted the inquiry learning community mode in accordance with the curriculum map for online self-learning, group discussion and skills practice, while the control group received the teacher-led teaching mode for offline theory teaching, operation teaching and skills practice. After the teaching intervention, both groups of students received the assessment questionnaire of learning gains and the comprehensive experimental ability evaluation. Chi-square test or paired t-test was performed using SPSS 23.0. Results:Compared with the control group, students in the learning community group reported that their sense of learning gain was enhanced ( P<0.001, Cohen d=0.97); sub-items showed that the effect size for the understanding of learning content ( P<0.001, Cohen d=1.22), the overall course situation ( P<0.001, Cohen d=0.90), the course activities ( P=0.000, Cohen d=0.83), and the information obtained ( P<0.001, Cohen d=1.16) was significantly different. The total score of practical ability of comprehensive experiment was significantly improved ( P = 0.005, Cohen d=0.51), in which the experimental situation displays ( P=0.002, Cohen d=0.55) and experimental effect ( P=0.006, Cohen d=0.49) were better than the control group. There was no significant difference in the performance of experimental preparation and case analysis between the two groups. Conclusion:Developing an inquiry learning community in nursing clinical comprehensive experiment can effectively enhance student' sense of learning gains and promote the improvement of clinical practical ability.

Effectiveness of Self-directed Learning to Teach Biochemistry in Phase 1 MBBS Students

The effectiveness of introducing Self-directed Learning (SDL) activity in teaching Biochemistry in Phase 1 MBBS Students was studied by measuring learning gain before and after SDL session. The SDL sessions were conducted among 3 groups of Students (Group A, n = 88; group B, n = 66 and Group C, n = 46; Total, n = 200) according to their learning needs. SDL was found to improve test scores significantly in all three groups. The perception of the Undergraduate Medical Students on SDL was also collated in this study by close ended question (in Likert scale) and open-ended questions. Perception analysis showed that majority of the Students agreed that SDL sessions are beneficial and interesting. However, thematic analysis showed that most of the Students considered SDL to be more time consuming. The questions were found to be reliable in present setting by calculating Cronbach’s alpha coefficient (0.893). It seems to be essential to find out the topics where students need special guidance and which topics will be chosen for SDL.

Ganancia en el aprendizaje del concepto de fuerza y cambio en las actitudes hacia la física en estudiantes de la Escuela Preparatoria de Tonalá / Gain in learning the force concept and change in attitudes toward Physics in students of the Tonala High School

RESUMEN Desde la perspectiva de la educación basada en competencias, en México, el pertenecer al Sistema Nacional de Bachillerato implica la adopción de estrategias orientadas y centradas en las necesidades de los estudiantes. El objetivo de este trabajo fue evaluar la eficacia en el aula de la academia de Física de la Escuela Preparatoria de Tonalá, Jalisco, México, para el logro de actitudes favorables hacia la física y el aprendizaje del concepto de fuerza. Para ello, fue necesario el uso de los factores de concentración y de Hake, con la finalidad de conocer las tendencias en las respuestas y la ganancia en el aprendizaje de conceptos, respectivamente. Los datos fueron obtenidos a partir de la aplicación de dos cuestionarios, la encuesta sobre expectativas hacia la física y la prueba inventario sobre el concepto de fuerza, a alumnos de los cursos de Física I y Mecánica de materiales cerámicos, impartidos en el Bachillerato General por Competencias, durante el primer semestre, y en el Bachillerato Tecnológico en Cerámica, durante el segundo ciclo. El resultado del análisis da información de la baja zona de ganancia en el aprendizaje del concepto de fuerza (G = 0.000 1). El avance en el porcentaje de respuestas favorables hacia la física fue pequeño (1.2 %) en ambos programas de bachillerato, y además hubo una disminución de la pre-prueba a la post-prueba de la actitud favorable en tres grupos. Los patrones de respuesta en la zona aleatoria sugieren que los estudiantes tienen dificultad con el aprendizaje de la física.

ABSTRACT From the perspective of competency-based education, in Mexico, to be part of the National High School System implies the adoption of strategies oriented toward and centered on the students' needs. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the physics academy of the Tonala High School, Jalisco, Mexico, for the attainment of favorable attitudes toward physics and the learning of the force concept. For that, it was necessary to use the concentration and the Hake factor with the goal to know the trends in the answers and the gain in the learning of concepts respectively. The data were obtained from the administration of two questionnaires, the Maryland Physics Expectations Survey and the Force concept inventory, to students of Physics I and ceramic materials mechanics courses. These courses are taught in the first semester of the competency-based General High school Program, and in the second semester of the Ceramics-oriented High School Technological Program, respectively. The result of the analysis gives information of the low gain zone in learning of the force concept (G = 0.000 1). The progress in percentage of favorable responses towards physics was small (1.2 %) in both high school programs. In addition, there was a decrease in favorable attitude from pre-test to post-test in three groups. The response patterns in the random zone suggest that the students have difficulty with physics learning.

Learning gain of pharmacy students after introducing guided inquiry learning with computer simulation in a pharmacology class in Fiji / 보건의료교육평가

PURPOSE: Active learning methods such as problem-based learning have been widely adopted in health professions education, although guided inquiry learning has been used only in limited settings. The objective of this study was to determine students' learning gain when guided inquiry learning was combined with computer simulation in a basic pharmacology course. METHODS: The second-year pharmacy students from Fiji National University participated in the study. Following classroom lectures on pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, the students used tutor-prepared practice problems in groups of 3-4 to explore their concepts with Cyber Patient and Virtual Organ Bath software. Pre- and posttest assessments were administered to determine the learning gain from the exercises based on Hake's criteria. RESULTS: Forty-two students participated in the study. The average normalized learning gain from the pharmacokinetics exercises was 0.68. Thirty-seven participants (88.1%) achieved a significant learning gain, while 5 (11.90%) did not. The average normalized learning gain from the pharmacodynamics exercises was 0.76. Forty-one participants (97.6%) achieved a significant learning gain, while one participant (2.4%) did not. CONCLUSION: These results demonstrated that use of guided inquiry learning with computer simulations could produce significant learning gains with improvement in students' understanding of basic pharmacology.