The nursing educator's role in e-learning: a literature review

Abstract

Background: e-Learning is becoming more commonplace in nursing and healthcare professional education. Research has shown that e-learning can be just as effective at helping students achieve cognitive learning objectives as traditional face-to-face courses, provided that certain quality criteria are met. However, the decentralized, asynchronous nature of e-learning precludes spontaneous, personal interaction between the instructor and the learner. In addition to this, learning objectives in nursing and other healthcare professions are not only within the cognitive, but also within the affective and psychomotor domains.

Objective: This article seeks to answer the following question: How does e-learning transform the role of nurse educators?

Design: Narrative literature review.

Review methods: A comprehensive database search was conducted using the English and German key words "teacher," "educator," "role," "e-learning," and "nursing" to identify literature that examined the role of (nurse) educators in e-learning.

Results: The search strategy resulted in the inclusion of 40 sources. The majority of the literature is expert opinion and examines the educator's role in e-learning from a theoretical point of view (n=30). There is a paucity of empirical research pertaining directly to the educator's role (n=10). Only four sources deal specifically with the nurse educator's role.

Conclusions: The literature agrees on the need for a new role definition in light of e-learning. This role is more complex than the educator's traditional role. The literature does not provide any indication of how the educator's role can be adapted to the specific needs of online nurse education. There is a need for more empirical research on this subject.

Keywords: Nurse educator; Nursing education; Online learning; Role concept; e-Learning.