Effects of PAD class on Chinese nursing students' academic achievement and core ability: A systematic review and...

PAD class has been used in nursing teaching for more than 10 years in China, but there is no evidence to show the effectiveness of PAD class in nursing students. Therefore, this study aims to conduct the first systematic review and meta-analysis of the learning effects of PAD class on nursing students. From the establishment of the database until August 2025, a systematic evaluation search was conducted on 9 databases. After careful screening process, 44 studies on PAD class education of nursing students in China were selected for meta-analysis. The results show that PAD class is significantly better than traditional teaching methods in improving final examination scores, practical skill, usual performance, self-directed learning ability, critical thinking ability, and self-efficacy of Chinese nursing students. Given the limited number and quality of included studies, these findings should be confirmed by further high-quality studies.

This study aims to explore the effects of the Presentation-Assimilation-Discussion (PAD) class among nursing students in China.

The PAD class has been implemented in China for over a decade. Although several studies have demonstrated its potential to improve both academic performance and core competencies of nursing students in China, there remains insufficient evidence to conclusively recommend its adoption as a teaching method.

This is a systematic review and meta-analysis.

In August 2025, a comprehensive search was performed across multiple databases, including PubMed, Embase, The Cochrane Library, Web of Science (WoS), OVID, Wanfang, VIP, CBM, and CNKI. Studies meeting the predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria were selected, and relevant data were extracted. The quality of the studies was assessed before conducting the meta-analysis. The evaluation protocol of this study has been prospectively registered in the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews(PROSPERO) (CRD420251020143).

From an initial pool of 2013 articles, 44 were selected for meta-analysis after a rigorous screening process. The results show that the PAD class approach can improve the final examination scores, practical skill, usual performance, self-directed learning ability, critical thinking ability, and self-efficacy of nursing students compared to traditional teaching methods. All these outcomes were significantly superior.

The PAD class model can effectively enhance academic achievement and core ability of Chinese nursing students. However, considering the limited quantity and quality of the included studies, these conclusions require validation through further high-quality research.