Teaching and Student Attitudes in an Online Psychiatric Nursing Course

Overview & Synopsis

The COVID-19 pandemic process, practice-oriented areas such as nursing education were more concerned. It becomes essential to evaluate whether online teaching methods are as applicable, acceptable, and effective as in-class teaching for a psychiatric nursing course and to assess students' attitudes toward distance education. This study aimed to evaluate the teaching methods practiced in distance education in a psychiatric nursing course and students' attitudes toward distance education. A descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted among final-year nursing students at a Turkish university using online survey (n: 144). It has been concluded that students use mobile devices more and have internet problems in distance education. The student's total score on the Distance Education Attitudes Scale (DEAS) was 52.78 ± 18.61 (moderate). The attitude scores toward distance education were evaluated as negative and below the medium level in all dimensions. The difference between the students' internet access issues in distance education, their ability to use technology in distance education and their evaluation of the distance education system, and the score of the DEAS and its sub-dimensions scores were significant (p < 0.05). Among the teaching methods adopted in distance education, the methods that the students evaluated as the most effective were the presentation of psychiatric case examples from movies (85.4%), lectures (83.3%), and psychiatric animations that summarized the subject (81.3%). The use of visual and auditory methods together in distance education improves the effectiveness of the course.