Impact of community health content on nurse practitioner practice: a comparison of classroom and web-based teaching

This descriptive study focuses on evaluating a three-course community health sequence that was converted to a distance learning, web-based format in 1998. The courses are part of the required curriculum for primary care nurse practitioner students and are also taken by most nurse-midwifery students in the master's degree program at the University of Texas Medical Branch School of Nursing at Galveston. All students who completed the courses between 1996 and 2000 were surveyed to determine the extent to which they have applied knowledge and skills gained through these courses in their practices. The investigators also sought to determine whether there were any differences in application to practice between students who took the traditional classroom course, students who took part of the course in the classroom and part online, and students who took the fully web-based course.A further objective was to assess the extent to which Internet resources are being used in their practice. The study results indicated that graduates are incorporating the concepts of the community health courses into their practice; there are no differences in application to practice between the three groups; and Internet resources are being used.