Evaluation and assessment of the online postgraduate critical care nursing course

During challenging times facing the health service, strategies for sustaining further education for nurses in highly specialised areas call for alternate means for learning. Nurses, who were accustomed to traditional methods of learning and had no formal computer training as part of their curriculum, are now being confronted with new methods of learning. Evaluation of the effectiveness of a newly developed postgraduate critical care course delivered online for nurses was examined. A pre test and post test of 16 participants were conducted. Participants found coursework intellectually stimulating and their preference to learn from websites demonstrated the effect size (tau-b=.677) to be significant at the 0.01 level. The pre and post test results from the knowledge assessment tool indicated an advancement of mean test scores and at a significant difference value of p=.055. Ninety four percent of the participants agreed that they were able to integrate their learning from the coursework towards their clinical practice. Improvement in nurses critical care knowledge impacts positively on delivery of safe and effective health care.