Nursing students' opinions regarding project based learning

Abstract

Research was planned to figure out opinions of the nursing students on project based learning approach. Research was realized with qualitative method in type of descriptive phenomenology. The work group consisted of 4 th grade volunteer students inscribed to the course of Education at Nursing at a nursing graduate school, in spring semester 2010-2011 (N:146) During the research, oriented sample method was used. Among the data, student presenter features were gathered in the Information Form whereas, their opinions about project based learning were gathered by using Semi-Structured Interview Form. Following questions took place in the Semi-Structured Interview Form concerning the levels of project based learning: How did .... level contributed to you in terms of individually and professionally? What are the most challenging and pleasuring points in .... level? The data was analyzed by qualitative (content analysis) and quantitative (frequency) data decoding techniques. Students introductory features' frequency and percentage was calculated with SPSS 16.0 packaged software. While 94,5% of the participating students were females, among them, 24,7% were 21 years old, making the average 22,92 +/- 2,53. 31,5% of them graduated from super high school. 67,8% of the students never took place in a project. In the research, common view is that even though students struggled at some points, it is a contributing learning approach. In line with these conclusions, project based learning might be regarded as an approach improving individual and team work, creative and critical thinking, problem solving and decision making skills of nursing students. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.