Learning strategies used by undergraduate nursing students in the context of a digitial educational strategy based on script concordance: A descriptive study

Abstract

Background: the digital educational strategy based on script concordance is an educational method that has been attracting increasing attention in healthcare education programs to fostering the development of clinical reasoning. It includes a digitized Script Concordance Test with incorporated expert feedback. However, the learning strategies required of students in the context of its use remain unknown.

Objective: This study aimed to identify the learning strategies that undergraduate nursing students need to use in the context of the digital educational strategy based on script concordance.

Method: A qualitative descriptive design was used to identify student learning strategies. Data was collected using an online questionnaire and semi-directed focus group interviews. Bégin's taxonomy provided the framework for linking the data collected to learning strategies required of students.

Results: Forty-four students participated in the study. Results show that when using a digital educational strategy based on script concordance, students are called to rely on their nascent scripts in order to select the data in short ill-defined clinical vignettes, evaluate new information repeatedly, anticipate microjudgments, and thus, gradually increase their knowledge and refine their scripts. Viewing the experts' feedback and consulting the referencing tools helped students self-monitor their knowledge, a key metacognitive strategy to learning clinical reasoning. Completed individually or with peers, the digital educational strategy could be used to learn a particular concept or as an integrative activity before an evaluation.

Conclusion: This original study has allowed us to link nursing clinical reasoning teaching conditions to the learning strategies used to develop this competency. Study results inform instructors about digital educational strategy based on script concordance to make it complementary with other educational strategies to better support complex learning of nursing clinical reasoning.

Keywords: Cognition; Descriptive study; E-learning; Learning strategies; Nursing clinical reasoning; Nursing education.