The effectiveness of an Instagram-based educational game in a Bachelor of Nursing course: An experimental study.

BACKGROUND: Gamification is a novel educational method that adopts elements of games to motivate students using participatory learning. The objective of this study was to measure the effect of participation in an Instagram-based educational game on learning outcomes. METHOD: Experimental design with 291 university students in a first-year course of the Bachelor of Nursing during the 2020-21 academic year. RESULTS: After ruling out pretest sensitization, we identified a positive effect of participation in the educational game. An average improvement of 0.62 points was observed in the final grade of the students belonging to the experimental groups. CONCLUSION: Nursing undergraduate students participating an Instagram-based educational game had better learning outcomes than their counterparts who did not participate in the game.

Gamification on Instagram: Nursing students' degree of satisfaction with and perception of learning in an educational game.

BACKGROUND: Gamification has been shown to lead to greater motivation and participation among students. Currently, many teachers use social networks to share supplementary course materials and student work, but they have not incorporated gamified educational activities into social networking sites. OBJECTIVE: To determine nursing students' satisfaction with an Instagram-based educational game and their perceptions of its effects on their learning. DESIGN: We conducted a cross-sectional, descriptive, observational study. PARTICIPANTS: First-year nursing students in the subject "Dietetics and Nutrition". RESULTS: Of the total sample, 71.7 % agreed that gamification had helped them assimilate the content. Between 66 % and 70 % agreed that the experience had motivated them to keep up with the subject and learn more about the topic, that it had helped them to better understand certain concepts of the subject, that they would recommend the experience to other students, and that they enjoyed the experience of playing a game while learning. 71.7 % of them were in favour of increased use of gamification in other subjects. CONCLUSIONS: The use of an Instagram-based educational game as a complement to in-class teaching was useful, enjoyable, and motivating for the acquisition of new knowledge.

The usefulness and acceptance of the OSCE in nursing schools.

This qualitative study explores the usefulness and acceptance attributed by students and faculty members to an Objective Structured Clinical Evaluation (OSCE) administered to nursing undergraduates in Catalonia (Spain) for 10 years. Seventy undergraduate nursing students and twelve faculty members participated in the study. The data collection techniques included an open-ended questionnaire, a student focus group, and individualized faculty interviews. The students experienced the OSCE positively as a learning event that offered an opportunity for feedback that could help them master the required competencies. The OSCE increased students' responsibility by presenting them with a set of challenges that they had to tackle individually. Moreover, it reaffirmed their confidence in situations that closely resembled professional practice. Faculty members valued the ability of the OSCE to integrate and assess competencies, its objectivity, and the indirect information it provided on the effectiveness of the curriculum. The educational impact attributed to the OSCE and its acceptance among faculty and students suggest that it would be useful to re-implement it in the Bachelor's of Nursing in Catalan universities. Our findings may be of use to other nursing programs considering how to assess competency-based education, especially in the context of the European Higher Education Area.

[Testing objective structured clinical evaluation (OSCE) for nursing students experience developed during the years 1995-2009]. / Pruebas de evaluación clínica objetiva y estructurada (ECOE) para estudiantes de enfermería.

The objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) has been recognized as an effective evaluation tool in the health area and has been implemented by an important sector of educational institutions, the Faculty of Medicine and School of Nursing. The present article describes the OSCE organized by the Institute of Health Studies in collaboration with the University Schools of Catalan Nursing. Between the years of 2002 and 2009, OSCE annual exams took place with the participation of 1.803 students. The global results remained stable with a median grade of slightly less than 60%, and the competence component that evaluated communicative capacity was the one in which students obtained the best results. The reliability obtained surpassed the minimum recommended by international standards. It's important underline the positive value to the students of all aspects of the test. From this experience it seems evident that it would be useful to take advantage of the OSCE tests in order to show the students their strong points and ways to improve. We should highlight, not only as a goal but also as an opportunity the assessment by competencies that the European space of higher Education provides at the end of studies for a Nursing degree.

[Informal caretakers in Spain, their profile and care provided]. / Los cuidadores informales en España. Perfil y cuidados prestados.

The authors carried out a systematic search in main data bases and a methodological content review by paired authors about selected publications. The authors reviewed and analyzed 332 articles about informal caretakers and they chose 182 which complied with their selection criteria. The profile for informal caretakers of persons aged over 65 in Spain is identified as well as the type of care he/she provides. It is worth highlighting the introduction of a new factor in caretaking for the elderly during recent years at a national Spanish level, and since the 1990s on an international level: paid non-professional immigrant caretakers. This phenomenon makes the different traits which ethnic minority caretakers have reflect on the dynamics and the results of this study.