Effect of guided discovery learning on first year nursing students

Abstract

The objective of this study was to demonstrate whether or not learning by discovery would motivate Kenyan student nurses to learn more on their own than learning by lecture method, and also whether or not the group that learnt by discovery would recall more and transfer more effectively than tile group that learnt by lecture method. The subjects were 130 first year students who were divided into two groups. The material to be learnt was the principle of ecological balance and how it works in two different situations. Except for the method of presentation of the principle, everything else, includin6 pretest questions and post learning evaluation, was equated for the two groups. The learning phase included 3 formal learning sessions spread over 2 weeks followed by a retention phase during which evaluation of retention and transfer was done 3 days, 3 weeks and 6weeks after the last formal learning session. The recall and transfer results showed that 3 days after the last learning session there was no significant difference between the two groups) but 3weeks and 6weeks after the last learning session there was a significant difference between the two groups in favour of greater recall -, and transfer for the discovery group. A separate measure of levels of motivation revealed generally high motivation for the discovery group. These findings are consistent with previous findings and imply that the discovery method could be employed to improve classroom instructions in Kenyan nursing schools. The results also open the way for further studies of long term effects of each method of instruction and whether these effects are generalisable to the clinical setting.