Education Based on Kolb’s Learning Cycle: A Strategy to Improve Clinical Education in Nursing

More than half of the process of professionalization of nursing students occurs in the patient’s bedside. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to introduce a teaching method based on Kolb’s learning cycle as a strategy to promote clinical education.

This review article is a review article based on information collected from Scopus, Iran medex, Science Direct, Pub Med, SID and Magiran data bases as well as library studies with Persian keywords of nursing students, teaching methods, experimental learning of Kolb, and clinical teaching in 2010-2021. Searching the databases of 63 articles was found and finally 24 articles were used in this study.

Empirical learning theory is the basis of Kolb’s theory. In this theory, learning is described as a process that is generated by the deformation of experience, knowledge or science. According to this view, there are 4 related steps in Kolb’s learning cycle, including: concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation and active experimentation. In this model, students actively participate in learning and the instructor plays a guiding and facilitating role in the learning process. The use of Kolb’s learning cycle makes it easy for students to create a link between theoretical and clinical education in appropriate clinical settings, relying on prior knowledge and gaining experiences in clinical settings.

It seems that kolb’s learning cycle teaching method is a suitable method for nursing education and can be used especially in clinical settings. Therefore, considering the advantages of this teaching method, it is recommended that nursing instructors consider the use of this method.