Nursing Student Education: Comparison of Two Methods of Multimedia Education and Lecture Education

Background &

One of the most important signs of commitment to community health is the field of nursing education, in which effective communication is a serious issue. Medical sciences in prestigious universities attract considerable attention to effective communication. Good education and scientific research in nursing schools are needed to train a successful medicine ethically. For this purpose, education for medical students plays an important role. For instance, multimedia education significantly improves the listening skills of English learners. Moreover, studies showed that attitudes toward using multimedia education had a significant effect on explaining changes in learners' listening skills. They recommended that multimedia education be merged with English language instruction as a part of the listening skills training course (1). The hypothesis of the effect of a teacher-student method according to multimedia education on students' academic achievement was confirmed (2). Furthermore, good communication skills are an essential component of nursing education. In teaching communication skills, methods such as lectures and seminars are less effective than experimental ones with feedback(3). Results of this study, similar to other research, indicated the positive role of multimedia use in the development of social skills of deaf female students (4). It also demonstrated that the multimedia method had a more lasting effect than lecturing. Thus, it is believed that this method will be implemented more widely in universities in addition to education(5). Today, injuries and complications, as well as deaths due to medical errors, are one of the problems in this area (6). Discussion in small groups is considered the most effective way to provide ethics education for medical students (8). Undoubtedly, being a good doctor is more than just knowing the standards of professional competence. In other words, there is a difference between doing a job and understanding and doing it. So, what a doctor does matters (10). As education has a positive effect on promoting oral health behavior, its type also plays a key role. In this regard, the multimedia teaching method was more effective than the lecture method in all stages (21). Employing multimedia training programs has increased the knowledge and practice of nurses about safe injection, which is one of their serious tasks. Therefore, utilizing this method is recommended to improve their clinical performance (22).

This study was quasi-experimentally, and its samples were selected by stratified random sampling method among nursing students who had taken professional ethics courses. Two classes were considered experimental, and the other two were as evidence. Students in both groups completed a researcher-made effective communication questionnaire before and after the training. All of them were in one faculty and ethics course. They also were professionals and in the clinical training phase. The researcher-made questionnaire consisted of two parts. The first part was related to individual questions and demographic information of the samples. The second part was questions designed based on the research objectives, which included 24 items. The questionnaire was according to the opinions of 15 professors and experts to check its validity. After the necessary editing, the final questionnaire was provided.

According to Table 2, it can be said that the average pre-test scores and the standard deviation in the experimental group that received multimedia training are 70.71 and 6.27, respectively. For the control group, these values are 71.22 and 4.74, respectively. According to the mean values in the control and experimental groups and based on the value of t obtained in the degree of freedom 97, there is no significant difference between the mean scores of the two groups in the pre-test. Considering results and homogeneity of variances in experimental and control groups and comparing the means in them, we found no significant difference. Furthermore, Table 4 displays that the average post-test score and the standard deviation in the experimental group are 75.39 and 8.74, respectively, at the end of the course. Also, these values are 71.88 and 8.26, respectively, for the control group. Consequently, taking into account that the mean of the post-test in the experimental group is higher than that of the control group and based on the obtained t - 2.09 in the degree of freedom 97, there is a significant difference at the level of p <0.03 in the two post-test scores of both groups. Similarly, Table 5 demonstrates that the mean of pre-test scores and the standard deviation are 70.71 and 6.27, respectively, in the experimental group. These values are 75.39 and 8.74, respectively, at the post-test for the control group. Therefore, as the mean of the post-test in the experimental group is higher than that of the control group and taking the obtained t -0.93 in the degree of freedom of 63 into account, it is evident that there is a significant difference at the level of p <0.01 between the two pre-and post-test scores.
In addition, the average post-test scores and the standard deviation in the experimental group at the end of the course are 75.39 and 8.74, respectively. These values are 71.88 and 8.26, respectively, for the control group. As a result, since the mean of the post-test in the experimental group is higher than the mean of the control group and considering the t obtained 2.09 in the degree of freedom 97, we can say that there is a significant difference at the level of p <0.05 between the two post-test scores in the experimental and control groups.

Effective communication of nursing students is one of the essential pillars of the basic training of nurses. Thus, it deserves considerable attention. In this study, findings demonstrated that teaching nursing courses with a multimedia teaching method compared to the old one, the lecture method, exerts a greater influence on effective communication among nursing students. Consequently, it is suggested that medical science training centers use the multimedia method to improve their performance.