Development and evaluation of a pathophysiology CD-ROM for nurse practitioner distance education

Increasing interest in computer-mediated learning technologies has prompted educators to incorporate them into many learning environments; however, there is still little evaluative evidence to support their effectiveness. This report describes the development and evaluation of an instructional CD-ROM on pathophysiology for Nurse Practitioner students. Researcher-designed questionnaires were used to assess the characteristics of our students, and to solicit their ratings of the CD-ROM on ease of use, clarity of instruction, interest, and convenience of the program, using 5-point Likert scales. The respondents indicated that the package was easy and convenient to use, with high technical quality, and of a level challenging to some but not all of the students. On-line quizzes were most highly rated. There were also some indications of higher levels of achievement among users than among nonusers. These data suggest use of CD-ROM as a distance education strategy can be effective for Nurse Practitioner students.