Dispatches from the hi-blogs.info krew

SINI2009 – Margaret Hansen on use of video iPods July 24, 2009

Margaret started by describing how she began podcasting lectures; positive anecdotal feedback on the experience as students can listen anytime. Then started to think about using video iPods for teaching clinical skills. Received grant to conduct a small study in school of nursing.

Was involved in a study in Auckland, New Zealand in teaching medical students skills in urinary catheterisation; Margaret’s study was essentially a replication study. Would student’s competency level in the skill and in self-confidence be increased? – would it be of benefit to the patient? – would it decrease the learning time for students to reach particular levels of skills? Margaret also has interest in using mobile devices for patient education.

Study was a randomised controlled intervention study with nursing students at a university in California. Skills teaching involved the use of short videos of the skills, followed by demonstrations of skills on mannequins; students had the opportunity to practice the skills and be assessed by the nurse who had done the teaching. Students were then randomly assigned to groups, with some having video iPods and some not. Students were then re-assessed on the skills after two weeks; during this period, students were in clinical settings and would be expected to perform the skills for real.

The study results (just out) showed little significance between the two groups in the study; but did the experimental group take less time to achieve the same levels of competence and confidence levels? Data is slow in coming back from the students, so it is difficult to know the answers at present.

School is now going to continue using the video iPods for skills learning, and a series of approx. 30 videos will be created and loaded to the devices.