Nursing informatics in undergraduate nursing education in Australia before COVID-19: A scoping review.

Background: Technology can support transformational outcomes of high quality and evidenced-based care and education. Embedding nursing informatics into the undergraduate nursing curriculum enhances nursing students' digital health literacy, whilst preparing them to use health information systems and technological innovations to support their learning both at university and in the clinical environment. Aim: This scoping review aimed to provide an overview of the published literature on how nursing informatics was embedded and integrated into the undergraduate nursing curriculum in Australia before coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Methodology: A scoping review approach guided this study using the Levac, Colquhoun, and O'Brien framework, and the following databases were searched: CINAHL Plus, EMCARE, MEDLINE Ovid, Scopus, ERIC ProQuest, and Web of Science. A total of 26 articles were included: Five quantitative studies, eight qualitative studies and 13 mixed-methods studies. Findings: Few studies focused on the concept of nursing informatics itself, and only two studies described the process of developing curricula that contain nursing informatics competencies and their implementation: the educational scaffolding and modular development approach and a Community of Inquiry Framework (COI). Most studies centred on nursing informatics tools to facilitate teaching and learning in classrooms and skills laboratories. The reported pedagogical strategies were online learning, blended learning, and technology-enabled simulations. Hindrances to nursing informatics being integrated into undergraduate curricula were disparities of the informatics content, a lack of guidelines and/or frameworks, and poor digital literacy. Conclusion: This study provided a baseline perspective of how nursing informatics was embedded and integrated into nursing education in Australia before COVID-19. Overwhelmingly, the focus of research to date was found to be mainly on the utilisation of technological tools to support learning and teaching.

Using Mobile Technologies Among Undergraduate Nursing Students for Academic Purposes in Tertiary Education: A Quantitative Survey.

Mobile devices are increasingly part of daily life, with the benefits of using the technology in nursing education widely recognized. This study explored the use of mobile devices among undergraduate nursing students for academic purposes in South Africa, using a quantitative survey. The majority of participants owned smartphones (87.6%), followed by laptops (76%) and tablets (47.1%). Mobile devices were used to perform academic tasks and communicate and collaborate with peers and teachers, as well as search and access electronic resources. Few of the first year nursing students owned laptops and tablets and used them less frequently than the students from other levels of the study. Equipping nursing students with mobile devices, such as laptops and tablets, particularly first year students, and ensuring that they have adequate skills to use them, is essential to training future nurses who are expected to work in a technology-mediated health environment.

Measuring perceived learning gains of undergraduate nursing students in ICT skills: One group pre-test and post-test design.

Purpose: This study aimed to measure learning gains during an ICT training intervention in first-year students completing a four-year undergraduate nursing degree.Methodology: This study adopted a quasi-experimental, one group pre-test and post-test design. The intervention effectiveness was measured using individual single-student normalised gains, g; class average normalised gain, 〈g〉; and average single-student normalised gain, g(ave).Results: In this study, the class average normalised gains, 〈g〉 ranged from 34.4% to 58.2%, and the average of single student normalised gains, g(ave) ranged from 32.4% to 50.7%. The overall class average normalised gain 〈g〉 was 44.8%, and the average of the single student normalised gain was 44.5%, with 68% of students having a normalised gain of 30% and above, indicating that the intervention was effective.Conclusion: Similar interventions and measurements are recommended to all health professional students during their first academic year to pave a foundation for ICT usage for academic purposes.

Using Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis to understand the role of technology in nursing education.

AIM: The study aimed to establish the role played by technology in nursing education through Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). METHODS: 150 student nurses participated, with data being collected using a structured questionnaire with 14 items on a 5-point Likert scale. Parallel Analysis (PA) and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) were conducted to identify the factors for the role of technology in nursing education, Confirmatory Factor analysis (CFA) was used to ascertain the model fit. ANOVA, t-test and binary regression analysis were used to identify among the factors the differences within the level of the study, and perceived abilities to use the computer. RESULTS: The EFA identified five factors from 14 items, and through the CFA, the results indicated that the model was supported by the following indices: Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.968 (>0.95); Incremental Fit Index (IFI) = 0.969 (>0.95); Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) = 0.957 (>0.95); Root Mean Squared Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.077 (<0.080); and SRMR = 0.0396 (<0.08). These results were within acceptable ranges, which indicated that the five factors obtained from EFA were validated. However, Chi-square goodness of fit statistics was not statistically significant (χ2 = 126.312, d.f = 67, p = .000). Overall, 89.3% (n = 134) nursing students had a positive perception of the role of technology in nursing education. Binary regression analysis indicated that 1st year nursing students positively perceived the role of technology 6.7 times more than other levels (OR = 6.710, 95% CI: 1.33-33.63, p = .021). Students with good ability to use the computers (92.9%) were 5.3 more likely to have a positive perception towards the role of technology in nursing than those with the poor ability (OR = 5.35, 95%CI = 1.76-16.26, p = .003). CONCLUSION: Using innovative teaching strategies and ensuring that nursing students are skilled is essential to the future of the nursing profession. The five-factor model would be a useful tool to assess the perception of students towards the role of technology in nursing education.