Author(s)

Keiko Aizu^1*, Kasumi Mikami¹, Ryoko Tsuchiya², Mayumi Shimizu³, Naoki Oka⁴, Yoshiko Nishizawa¹

¹Graduate School of Health Sciences, Hirosaki University, Aomori, Japan.
²School of Medicine & Hospital, Hirosaki University, Aomori, Japan.
³Institute of Radiation Emergency Medicine, Hirosaki University, Aomori, Japan.
⁴Faculty of Human Life Sciences, Tokushima Bunri University, Tokushima, Japan.

This study aimed to verify the effects of a new instructional method to structure knowledge. The research hypothesis was that “Structured knowledge improves assessment skills of students”. Fifty-five second-year undergraduate students volunteered to participate in this study. They were randomized into either a group that received instructional intervention (n = 19; intervention) or a group that did not (n = 36; non-intervention). A survey and instructional intervention comprised pre-tests, individual instructional intervention, participant self-studies and post-tests. The students attempted one pre- and one post-test task, each comprising concept map drawing and assessment of actual patients with diabetes. Participants who received educational intervention described concept maps regarding the pathophysiology and nursing of diseases, and we taught a learning strategy to understand relationships between concepts and the assumption of clinical assessment. The results of the concept map drawing task showed that post-test structural knowledge scores were significantly higher for the intervention, than the non-intervention group (p < 0.001). Post-test scores of the intervention group for assessment skills regarding “nursing problems and factors” were significantly better than pre-test scores (p < 0.001), and significantly higher than those for the non-intervention group (p < 0.01). The educational intervention in this study seemed to augment the ability to identify nursing problems, although we did not teach assessment strategies. The intervention seemed to confer structured knowledge with explicit conditions for applicability. Structured knowledge with explicit conditions and learning how to use knowledge to assess patients before a clinical practicum seemed to augment assessment skills.

Concept Map, Structural Knowledge, Cognitive Psychology, Learning

Aizu, K. , Mikami, K. , Tsuchiya, R. , Shimizu, M. , Oka, N. and Nishizawa, Y. (2018) Educational Method for Developing Assessment Skills of Nursing Students. Open Journal of Nursing, 8, 518-530. doi: 10.4236/ojn.2018.88039.