A systems approach to the development and evaluation of a minicourse for nurses

An autotutorial, audiovisual minicourse was designed to: 1) inform nurses and other hospital personnel to handle effectively problems associated with contamination and decontamination of respiratory therapy equipment according to the best procedures currently availabel, 2) investigate how different instructional methods are related to student achievement, and 3) determine an effective approach for implementing this educational modality. The subjects-137 allied health students, predominantly nurses, enrolled in introductory microbiology in the Department of Biology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, during the Spring Quarter 1974-were randomly placed in four treatment groups: 1-programmed instruction (PI), 2-audiovisual (AV), 3-AV-PI combined, 4-no exposure to the mini-course-control group. Achievement was measured by comparing pre- and posttest scores on a subject matter achievement test. An analysis of variance revealed that not all treatment population means were equal. Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference Test showed that all three groups exposed to one or both methods of the minicourse scored higher than the control group, with the AV-PI group scoring highest.