Easiness, usefulness and intention to use a MOOC in nursing

Abstract

Background:The growing ageing population and the increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases call for innovation and healthcare mastered professional skills. Emerging digital learning contents envisioning to complement education, lifelong learning and in-service training. The use of digital platforms allows nurses to access contents in several formats, enabling the required pedagogical autonomy and personal time management. This allows nurses to enrol in education wherever accessible, reducing personal and professional costs and ensuring high-quality standards. Objectives: To assess students and nurses' easiness, usefulness and intention to use a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) as an educational resource to enhance self-management intervention skills in COPD patients. Methods: An exploratory, descriptive and transversal study was conducted. Participants were nursing students, registered nurses and rehabilitation nurses. A questionnaire supported by Davis Technology Acceptance Model and on the determinants of the ease-of-use perception of Venkatesh was applied. An EFA was performed and two dimensions were obtained (perceived easiness and global quality of the course and perceived usefulness and intention to use the MOOC) and groups were compared in these dimensions. Results: From the total participants (n = 93), 65.6% were nursing students, 15.1% were Portuguese nurses and 19.4% were Portuguese rehabilitation nurses. The perceived easiness and global quality score of the course were 4.70 (SD = 0.314) and the perceived usefulness and intention to use the MOOC was 4.73 (SD = 0.346). Rehabilitation nurses, who are older, scored higher than nurses and students (χ 2 (2, n = 93) = 8.43, p = .015, ε 2 = 0.092). The dropout rate was 25%. Conclusions: The MOOC showed usefulness and nurses' intention to use this educational resource in future education and yielded high average rates of perceived easiness and global quality. These massive courses unlock new opportunities for nursing education and to lifelong learning in nursing, enhancing safety and quality of the healthcare services in supporting patients to achieve a better quality of life.

Literature Review on MOOCs on Sensory (Olfactory) Learning

“…In support of this, medical and healthcare students report that they are more motivated to learn through MOOCs, which allow for a beneficial sharing of digital material and a practical approach thanks to informal and transmedia learning environments [34,35]. MOOCs unlock new opportunities for training and lifelong learning by improving the safety and quality of health services in supporting patients to achieve a better quality of life [36]. What has been discussed is confirmed by all the selected studies, although there is a clear need to promote research in the field by presenting the evidence.…”

“…A statistical sensitivity analysis was carried out for the many studies (in Figure 5, [1,6,12,18,20,33,36,45,54]) containing missing data with respect to the research hypothesis, which is common in each research study. The data were analyzed excluding the missing values; thus, only the complete data were analyzed; then, the missing values were imputed through single or multiple imputations and, eventually, the analyses were traced back to the imputed data.…”

Digital Tools in Behavior Change Support Education in Health and Other Students: A Systematic Review

“…Participants learned to promote different techniques (e.g., MOOC, patient simulation, standard patients, etc.) of changing behaviors and treatment in the field of various disease states: diabetes ( n = 3) [ 35 , 41 , 47 ], heart failure ( n = 4) [ 37 , 43 , 49 ], COPD ( n = 3) [ 38 , 40 , 45 ], stroke [ 38 ], asthma [ 49 ], prostate cancer [ 44 ], breast cancer [ 38 ], hypertension [ 43 , 46 ], mental health [ 48 ], and dementia [ 38 ] (each n = 1). They also address interventions related to behavior changes such as the transition of care [ 43 ], cardiac life support, insulin injection technique [ 39 ], use of inhalers [ 36 ], and care in an ambulance [ 42 ] (each n = 1).…”

“…We included 15 articles in the final analysis. Of these, six were quantitative descriptive studies [ 35 , 37 , 41 , 45 , 47 , 49 ], two were randomized studies [ 36 , 39 ], six were mixed methods studies [ 40 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 46 , 48 ], and one was a qualitative study [ 38 ]. Different populations were included in the studies, such as nursing, sports science, and pharmacy students.…”

Technology Adoption and Continuance of Moocs: A Systematic Literature Review, Synthesis and Future Research Agenda

“…Seven studies have conducted multiple regression (Al-Shami et al, 2018;Ma & Lee, 2018). Padilha et al (2021) have used Kruskal Wallis, exploratory factor analysis, and MANOVA for data analysis. Sidek et al (2020) have used correlation and ANOVA for data analysis.…”