Evaluating graduate and undergraduate nursing students' computer skills to determine the need to continue teaching...

1. INTRODUCTION. This descriptive study examined undergraduate and graduate nursing students' perceptions of their computer literacy skills to determine whether faculty should continue teaching basic computing skills in nursing programs. As in Bryson's study [1] the computer literate nurse is one who understands the concepts of hardware, software, and operating systems; who is able ot use the computer to learn; and who is able ot use such applications as word-processing, spreadsheets, and databases. Zeimer [2] predicted that by 1994 students entering nursing schools would be prepared to use computers and that further teaching of computer skills would not be needed. Some faculty, however, have felt that students are not entering nursing programs prepared to use computers. 2. TOOLS. A Level of Computer Experience (LCE) tool was developed to measure the computer literacy skills of students entering the first of three Masters' level nursing informatics courses over a six-year period. The instrument's 25 items determined experience with: operating systems, hardware, learning tools, applications, and information systems (IS) life cycle (design, selection, implementation, evaluation and project management). The instrument was modified for undergraduate students; this eliminated the items relating to the IS life cycle since these items reflect advanced skills. The resulting instrument was composed of the first 16 items of the original Level of Computer Experience tool. For each item, a four pint Likert scale allowed respondents to choose from the words "none," "some," "moderate," and "extensive" to describe their level of experience. For scoring purposes each word was assigned a numerical value as follows: none = 1, some = 2, moderate = 3, and extensive =4. 3. DATA. The LCE was administered to 65 sophomore nursing students and 74 graduate nursing informatics students. Undergraduate scored 4 items (use of microcomputer, use of IBM type computer, keyboard skills and use of WordPerfect). This score was above the 2 or 'some' experience level. Mean scores for all other items ranged between 1 and 2. Graduate informatics students also had higher mean scores for the 4 items. No mean scores reached the 'moderate' level for either group. One-way analysis of variances showed significant differences between the undergraduate and graduate students on the item concerning use of statistical packages. 4. CONCLUSIONS. In this population, both graduate and undergraduate nursing students continue to possess low levels of computer literacy skills. Since many students come into nursing programs without the capability of using information technology in practice, schools need to continue providing a way for students to obtain computer literacy skills.