Blended learning in medical physiology improves nursing students' study efficiency

The rapid development of mobile phones and communication networks is profoundly changing the lives of people in China. With the gradual growth of Wi-Fi on college and university campuses, Chinese schools are setting off a wave of teaching reform combining online material with traditional classroom instruction. We adapted a Chinese University massive open online course physiology course into a private university online course, specifically designed for second-semester bachelor's level nursing students at Taishan Medical University. This online course blended with classroom teaching was offered to 108 freshmen from two parallel reform classes. A third class of 55 students was offered the traditional classroom lecture-based course as a control. Impressive teaching effects were achieved in reform classes, as indicated by significant improvement in student performance on the final examination and positive student feedback. The student surveys showed that 68% of students preferred the blended course over traditional classroom courses. The most highly rated advantages of the blended course were flexible learning time (84%) and improvement of independent study skills (75%). As higher education enters the internet era, exploiting the high-quality cyber resources may be the fastest and most economical way to improve teaching efficiency and enhance students' study experience.