HEALTH EDUC

• Determinants of Learning

  Factors that affect learning
• Nurse Educator's Role

  • Must identify the information learners need, their readiness to learn, and their learning styles
  • The learner remains the single most important person in the educative process
• Educator's role in learning

  1. Assessing problems or deficits

  2. Providing important information and presenting it in unique and appropriate ways

  3. Identifying progress being made

  4. Giving feedback and follow-up

  5. Reinforcing learning in the acquisition of new knowledge, skills, and attitudes

  6. Evaluating learners' abilities
• Learning Needs

  Gaps in knowledge that exist between a desired level of performance and the actual level of performance
• Methods used in the assessment of learning needs

  • Informal conversations
  • Structured interviews
  • Focus groups
  • Self-administered questionnaires
  • Written pretests
  • Observation
  • Documentations
• Steps in the assessment of learning needs

  1. Identify the learner

  2. Choose the right setting

  3. Collect data about the learner

  4. Collect data from the learner

  5. Involve members of the health care team

  6. Determine availability of educational resources

  7. Assess the demands of the organization

  8. Take time-management issues into account

  9. Prioritize needs
• Criteria for prioritizing learning needs

  • Mandatory
  • Desirable
  • Possible
• Readiness to learn

  The time when the learner demonstrates an interest, willingness, and ability to learn the type or degree of information necessary to maintain optimal health or to become skillful in a job
• Types of Readiness to Learn

  • Physical readiness
  • Emotional readiness
  • Experiential readiness
  • Knowledge readiness
• Components of Physical Readiness

  • Measures of ability
  • Complexity of task
  • Environmental effects
  • Health status
  • Gender
• Components of Emotional Readiness

  • Anxiety level
  • Support system
  • Motivation
  • Risk-taking behavior
  • Frame of mind
  • Developmental stage
• Components of Experiential Readiness

  • Level of aspiration
  • Past coping mechanisms
  • Cultural background
  • Locus of control
  • Orientation (Parochial, Cosmopolitan)
• Components of Knowledge Readiness

  • Present knowledge base
  • Cognitive abilities
  • Learning disabilities
• Learning Styles

  The way in which each learner begins to concentrate and retain new and difficult information
• Some learners are global thinkers and some are analytic
• Some learners learn better from auditory sources than from visual stimuli
• Some learners learn better when with the group than alone
• Components of present knowledge base

  • Cognitive abilities
  • Learning disabilities
• Learning styles

  Knowing the teaching methods and materials with which a learner is most comfortable or does not tolerate well, to tailor teaching to meet the needs of individuals with different styles of learning, thereby increasing their readiness to learn
• Types of learners


  • Global thinkers
  • Analytic thinkers
  • Auditory learners
  • Visual learners
  • Group learners
  • Independent learners
• Visual learners

  • Learn by reading material, using visual aids like charts, pictures, maps
• Auditory learners

  • Learn by listening, participating in discussions, making speeches and presentations, reading text aloud
• Kinesthetic learners

  • Learn by touching
• Learning style principles

  • Educator's preferred style vs learner's learning style
  • Caution against using teaching methods and tools that only apply to the educator's own learning style
  • Assist learner in identifying and learning according to their own learning preference
  • Learners given opportunity to learn through their preferred style first
  • Encourage learner to diversify their style preferences
  • Specific learning activities that reinforce each modality or style
• Mechanisms to determine learning style

  • Observation
  • Interviews
  • Administration of learning style instruments
• Brain Preference Indicator (BPI)

  Identifies right-brain, left-brain, and whole-brain preferences
• Right hemisphere

  • Emotional, visual-spatial, nonverbal; Thinking processes are intuitive, subjective, relational, holistic, and time free
• Left hemisphere

  • Vocal and analytical side; Thinking processes are reality-based and logical with verbalization
• No correct or wrong side of the brain; Each hemisphere gathers the same sensory information but handles it differently; Knowledge of one's own brain hemispherical performance can help educators identify the strengths and weaknesses of various teaching methods
• Field-independent individuals

  • Have internalized frames of reference, experience themselves as separate from others and the environment, less sensitive to social cues, not affected by criticism, favor an active participant role, eager to test out their ideas or opinions in a group
• Field-dependent individuals

  • More socially oriented, more aware of social cues, able to reveal their feelings, more dependent on others for reinforcement, need for extrinsic motivation and externally defined objectives
• Environmental Preference Survey (EPS) (Dunn and Dunn Learning Style Inventory)

  A self-reporting instrument that identifies how individuals prefer to function, learn, concentrate and perform educational activities
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

  Identifies basic stimuli that affect a person's ability to learn
• Kolb's Learning Style Inventory

  Identifies learning styles based on how learners perceive and process information
• Kolb's Learning Cycle

  Learning is a cumulative result of past experiences, heredity, and demand of present environment
• Kolb's Four Modes of Learning

  • Concrete Experience (CE mode): Learners like relating with people, benefit from specific experience, learn from feeling
  • Abstract Conceptualization (AC mode): Learners use systematic planning and logical analysis to solve problems, learn by thinking
• Kolb's Learning Style Inventory

  Kolb's theory on learning style
• Kolb's Learning Cycle


  1. Learner perceives

  2. Learner processes what they perceive
• Four Modes of Learning

  • Concrete Experience (CE mode)
  • Abstract Conceptualization (AC mode)
  • Active Experimentation (AE mode)
  • Reflective Observation (RO mode)
• Concrete Experience (CE mode)

  Learner like relating with people, benefit from specific experience, learn from feeling