Enriching remote access to the biosciences in undergraduate nursing programs: establishing and evaluating online video resources

Abstract

Bioscience courses in health programmes increasingly include students with limited ‘on-campus’ or face-to-face teaching exposure. These students need resources that are flexible, technologically innovative, easily accessible, and above all, engaging. We created and evaluated a bank of short (7-15min) Anatomy & Physiology (A&P) concept-captured video tutorials (CCVTs), accessible and downloadable through University websites. The CCVTs were linked with formative quiz questions. Utilising a prospective, semi-longitudinal design, we explored the effect of CCVTs on summative student performance across three geographically and socially disparate campuses of the same University in Queensland, Australia. Overall, 1,263 course participants had access to the CCVTs from ~630 first year undergraduate nursing students. Of these, 1 in 3 students engaged with the CCVTs. Comparative pre/post quizzes evaluated the impact of CCVTs on concept consolidation. Five out of ten CCVTs in semester 1 and eight out of ten in semester 2 promoted and enhanced concept consolidation. The level of CCVTs accessed (engagement) was positively correlated with individual course grades (pass/fail) and overall marks/100. The participating cohorts highly rated (4.3/5) the perceived usefulness of the CCVTs as supportive learning resources. Thus, the establishment of a relatively low-tech, remotely accessed, online learning resource can enrich student experience and performance in perceivably difficult biosciences courses.