Effectiveness of mobile cooperation intervention on students' clinical learning outcomes: A randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Aims: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the mobile cooperation intervention in improving the competence and self-efficacy of students and the quality of the clinical learning environment.

Background: For students, the clinical practicum is challenging as such and moreover the student - teacher cooperation, which supports the clinical learning of the students, has become complicated. Mobile applications have potential but their role in facilitating this cooperation remains unknown.

Design: A parallel-group randomized controlled trial.

Methods: Data were collected between January-March 2015 in Finland. The nursing students were randomly allocated to an intervention group (N = 52) or control group (N = 50). The intervention group used a mobile application to cooperate with the teacher during the clinical practicum. The control group engaged in standard cooperation. The primary outcome was competence. The secondary outcomes comprised self-efficacy and the quality of the clinical learning environment. Nurse Competence Scale, Self-efficacy in Clinical Performance instrument and the Clinical Learning Environment, Supervision and Nurse Teacher scale were used for student self-assessments. For the main analysis, hierarchical linear mixed models were used with the intention-to-treat principle.

Results: Competence and self-efficacy showed no significant between-group differences in mean improvements, but significant improvements in both groups were detected over the 5 weeks. Satisfaction with the clinical learning environment showed no significant between-group differences, however, the role of the nurse teacher subscale, especially regarding cooperation, showed significant group differences.

Conclusion: The mobile cooperation intervention was not significantly effective in improving individual outcomes, but did seem to improve significantly some aspects of the contextual outcomes.

Trial registration number: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02635295.

Keywords: clinical learning; clinical practicum; cooperation; mobile application; nurse teacher; nursing student; professional competence; randomized controlled trial; satisfaction; self-efficacy.