Module VII. Health Education Process

• nurses are responsible for the education of patients, families, nursing staff and nursing students.
• the nurse educator must be aware of what factors influence how well an individual learns.  It plays a great impact on the effective and efficient delivery of patient, student, and staff education.
• Nursing assessment of learners’ needs, readiness and styles of learning is the first and most important step in instructional design – but it is almost the first most likely to be neglected.
• The effectiveness of nursing care clearly depends on the scope, accuracy and comprehensiveness of assessment prior to interventions.
• Learning Needs - what the learner needs and wants to learn
• Learning needs are defined as gaps in knowledge that exist between a desired level of performance and the actual level of performance
• learning need is the gap between what someone knows and what someone needs or wants to know. Such gaps exist because of a lack of knowledge, attitude or skills.
• 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 healthcare team

  6.  Prioritize needs

  7.  Determine availability of educational resources.

  8.  Assess demands of the organization

  9.  Take time-management issues into account
• METHODS TO ASSESS THE LEARNNG NEEDS

  1.     Informal Conversation

  2.    Structured Interviews

  3.    Focus groups

  4.    Self-Administered Questionnaires

  5.    Tests

  6.    Observations

  7.    Patient Charts
• Readiness to Learn – when the learner is receptive to learning
• Readiness to learn can be defined as the time when the learner demonstrates an interest in learning the information necessary to maintain an optimal health or to become more skillful in a job.
• Four types of readiness to learn

  • Physical readiness
  • Emotional readiness
  • Experiential readiness
  • Knowledge readiness
• Physical readiness - measures of ability, complexity of task, environmental effects, health status, gender
• Emotional readiness – anxiety level, support system, motivation, risk-taking behavior, frame of mind, developmental stage
• Experiential readiness -level of aspiration, past coping mechanisms, cultural background, locus of control, orientation
• Knowledge readiness – Present knowledge base, cognitive ability, learning disabilities, learning styles
• Learning styles – how the learner best learns
• Determinants of Learning

  • Learning Needs
  • Readiness to Learn
  • Learning styles
• Learning styles refer to the ways in which and condition under which, learners most efficiently and most effectively perceive, process, store and recall what they are attempting to learn and how they prefer to approach different learning tasks.
• Knowing the student’s learning style enables the teacher to orient the students to the preferred method.
• Kolb describe learning as stream of interconnectedness occurring in stages
• Kolb describe learning as stream of interconnectedness occurring in stages, such as the following:

  • Concrete experience or factual exposure to an event or situation.
  • Observation and reflection on the experience derived from that situation.
  • Conceptualization, such as coming up with ideas taken from the same situation.
  • Generalization or generate knowledge applicable in a variety of settings.
• Four Learning Styles

  • Divergers
  • Assimilators
  • Convergers
  • Accommodators
• Identify the learning styles

  Divergers look at situations or events from different perspectives
• Identify the learning styles

  Divergers - They prefer concrete experience and reflective observations.
• Identify the learning style

  Divergers - They are sensitive and prefer to watch rather than do.
• Identify the learning style

  Divergers - They tend to gather information and use imagination to solve problems
• Identify the learning style

  Divergers - They are best at viewing concrete situations and giving several different viewpoints rather than viewing abstract situations.
• Identify the learning style

  Divergers - They are interested in people, and tend to be imaginative, emotional, and strong in the arts.
• Identify the learning style

  Divergers - They prefer to work in groups, to listen with an open mind and to receive personal feedback.
• Identify the learning style

  Assimilators - They prefer abstract conceptualization and reflective observations.
• Identify the learning styles

  Assimilators are learners who are more concise and logical in their approach.
• Identify the learning style

  Assimilators - Ideas and concepts for these learners are more important than concrete situations
• Identify the learning style

  Assimilators - They require good clear explanation rather than practical opportunity.
• Identify the learning style

  Assimilators - Learners excel in understanding wide-ranging information and organizing this in clear logical way.
• Identify the learning style

  Assimilators - Learners with this style are more attracted to logically sound theories than approaches based in practical value.
• Theorists are likely assimilators
• Identify the learning style

  Divergers - Learners perform better in situations that require idea-generation such as brainstorming, research, experiments, among others.
• Identify the learning style

  Convergers - are more concerned with problem-solving and use this learning style in finding solutions to practical issues.
• Identify the learning style

  Convergers - They prefer technical tasks and are less concerned with people and interpersonal aspects.