Teaching bioscience to nursing students-What works?

Area of Science:

• Biosciences Education
• Nursing Education

Background:

• Traditional auditorium lectures are a common method for delivering bioscience content to nursing students.
• The flipped classroom model offers an alternative pedagogical approach with potential benefits for student engagement and learning outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the effectiveness of the flipped classroom model versus traditional lectures on nursing students' bioscience examination performance.
• To analyze differences in examination pass rates and grade distributions between the two teaching methods.

Main Methods:

• An educational intervention study involving 493 first-year nursing students.
• Random assignment to either a flipped classroom (intervention) or traditional lecture (control) group for a bioscience course.
• Analysis of examination results, including pass/fail proportions and grade distributions, using statistical tests (Chi-square, Mann-Whitney Wilcoxon, binary logistic regression).

Main Results:

• No statistically significant difference was found in the proportion of students passing the examination between the flipped classroom (21.4%) and traditional lecture (23.6%) groups (p=0.574).
• The distribution of grades (A-E) also showed no significant differences between the two groups (p=0.691).
• Prior background in biology or natural science was associated with higher odds of passing the examination.

Conclusions:

• The flipped classroom approach did not yield significantly different examination results compared to traditional lectures for nursing students in bioscience.
• Pedagogical strategies may need further refinement to impact bioscience examination outcomes in nursing education.
• Student's prior academic background in science is a significant factor influencing success in bioscience examinations.