Brighton Journal of Research in Health Sciences

Supporting Research in the School of Health Sciences

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Wednesday July 8th 2015

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Pre-registration student nurses’ collaborative e-learning exploring the role of the clinical research nurse

Ian Taylor Senior Lecturer

Abstract

This presentation will detail an informal evaluation of blended learning activities developed and implemented in a level five pre-registration nursing module ‘Developing Clinical Research Nurse Careers’.  This module aims to develop in students an understanding of the role of the clinical research nurse, career pathways for research nurses, and their relevance for practice.  The digital transformation of its courses is a key aspiration of the University of Brighton, supported by the creative and innovative use of technologies for learning, teaching and research.  Blended learning generally incorporates the use of online media with traditional face-to-face contact with students, and may offer more satisfactory learning outcomes than either face-to-face approaches or stand-alone online media.  The SOLO taxonomy was applied to the module design to help match students’ activities with the intended learning outcomes through a process called ‘constructive alignment’.  This involved balancing and matching the module learning outcomes with students’ blended learning activities and the assessment task.  These were closely aligned to promote students’ deeper understandings of traditionally ‘dry’ key concepts, and to apply them to the professional context of the clinical research nurse.  Use of blended learning approaches was evaluated positively by students who achieved higher than average grades and pass rates in the module summative assessment when compared to modules using traditional learning and teaching approaches alone.

Biography

Dr Ian Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Heath Sciences.  His professional nursing background is in acute inpatient services, community mental health nursing and substance misuse, within the NHS in Scotland.  Ian has been involved in nurse education since 1996. His teaching interests include undergraduate continuing professional development research and evidence based practice teaching within the School.  Most recently, Ian has developed an interest in blended learning approaches and has designed and implemented an innovative Clinical Nurse Research Careers module for pre-registration nurses on the BSc (Hons) Nursing programme. Ian received an Excellence in Facilitating/Empowering Learning award from the university in 2014, recognising his commitment to students to work creatively to improve the quality of their learning.

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