Problem-based learning: an educational method for nurses in clinical practice

Cooperative Clinical Conferences: Nursing Student Pediatric Clinical Innovation

BACKGROUND

A gap exists between nursing student classrooms (i.e., clinical training) and newly graduated RNs' real-world nursing experiences. The Cooperative Clinical Conference (CCC) was piloted for prelicensure nursing clinical groups as a vehicle to allow students to reflect on their learning and physiology and disease, as it relates to the pediatric patient in the context of the entire plan of care for pediatric patients.

METHOD

Participating nursing student clinical groups were allotted 15 to 20 minutes to give group case presentations of de-identified patient scenarios, representative of the patient population on the assigned clinical unit.

RESULTS

The CCC as a learning opportunity in the clinical area was rated highly on evaluations by faculty and student participants in terms of their achievement of both learning objectives and satisfaction.

CONCLUSION

The CCC represented a feasible and acceptable method of enhanced learning and professional development with and for undergraduate nursing students in the pediatric clinical environment. [J Nurs Educ. 2016; 55(7):416-419.].

Characteristics and critical success factors for implementing problem-based learning in a human resource-constrained country

BACKGROUND

Problem-based learning (PBL) was introduced in Malawi in 2002 in order to improve the nursing education system and respond to the acute nursing human resources shortage. However, its implementation has been very slow throughout the country.

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of the study were to explore and describe the goals that were identified by the college to facilitate the implementation of PBL, the resources of the organisation that facilitated the implementation of PBL, the factors related to sources of students that facilitated the implementation of PBL, and the influence of the external system of the organisation on facilitating the implementation of PBL, and to identify critical success factors that could guide the implementation of PBL in nursing education in Malawi.

METHOD

This is an ethnographic, exploratory and descriptive qualitative case study. Purposive sampling was employed to select the nursing college, participants and documents for review.Three data collection methods, including semi-structured interviews, participant observation and document reviews, were used to collect data. The four steps of thematic analysis were used to analyse data from all three sources.

RESULTS

Four themes and related subthemes emerged from the triangulated data sources. The first three themes and their subthemes are related to the characteristics related to successful implementation of PBL in a human resource-constrained nursing college, whilst the last theme is related to critical success factors that contribute to successful implementation of PBL in a human resource-constrained country like Malawi.

CONCLUSION

This article shows that implementation of PBL is possible in a human resource-constrained country if there is political commitment and support.