Enhancing generic capabilities and metacognitive awareness of first-year nursing students using active learning strategy

BMC Nursing

Carmen Wing Han Chan¹  Cho Lee Wong¹  Fiona Wing Ki Tang¹  Ka Ming Chow¹ 

[1] The Nethersole School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong;

关键词: Active learning;    Generic capabilities;    Metacognitive awareness;    Nursing students;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12912-021-00601-7

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundDeveloping students’ generic capabilities is a major goal of university education as it can help to equip students with life-long learning skills and promote holistic personal development. However, traditional didactic teaching has not been very successful in achieving this aim. Kember and Leung’s Teaching and Learning Model suggests an interactive learning environment has a strong impact on developing students’ generic capabilities. Metacognitive awareness is also known to be related to generic capability development. This study aimed to assess changes on the development of generic capabilities and metacognitive awareness after the introduction of active learning strategy among nursing students.MethodsThis study adopted a quasi-experimental single group, matched pre- and posttest design. It was conducted in a school of nursing at a university in Hong Kong. Active learning approaches included the flipped classroom (an emphasis on pre-reading) and enhanced lectures (the breaking down of a long lecture into several mini-lectures and supplemented by interactive learning activities) were introduced in a foundational nursing course. The Capabilities Subscale of the Student Engagement Questionnaire and the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory were administered to two hundred students at the start (T0) and at the end of the course (T1). A paired t-test was performed to examine the changes in general capabilities and metacognitive awareness between T0 and T1.ResultsA total of 139 paired pre- and post-study responses (69.5 %) were received. Significant improvements were observed in the critical thinking (p < 0.001), creative thinking (p = 0.03), problem-solving (p < 0.001) and communication skills (p = 0.04) with the implementation of active learning. Significant changes were also observed in knowledge of cognition (p < 0.001) and regulation of cognition (p < 0.001) in the metacognitive awareness scales.ConclusionsActive learning is a novel and effective teaching approach that can be applied in the nursing education field. It has great potential to enhance students’ development of generic capabilities and metacognitive awareness.

【 授权许可】

CC BY