Learning Strategies and Achievement of Generic Competencies in Nursing Students

Abstract

Introduction: The changes in education that have occurred in the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic lead to the transformation of paradigms in teachers and students, who must assume new learning strategies to achieve the competencies established in the nursing academic-professional profile and thus approach patient care with quality.

Objective: To describe learning strategies and their relationship with the achievement of generic competencies in undergraduate nursing students.

Methods: A quantitative, descriptive, correlational and cross-sectional study was conducted at the Professional School of Nursing, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima-Peru, between August and November 2020. The population was 96 nursing students. The technique used was the interview and the instruments applied were the ACRA learning strategies scale, reliability (0.869) and a Likert-type scale to evaluate the achievement of generic competencies, reliability (0.986). The data were processed using IBM SPSS version 25 software; descriptive statistics and Pearson's Chi-square method for the relationship between variables were used for the analysis.

Results: Pearson's Chi-square test showed a significant and strong correlation between both variables (p = 0.784). Cognitive (71.90 %), metacognitive (62.50 %), and affective (74.30 %) learning strategies are little used by nursing students; systemic (65.60 %), instrumental (58.30 %), and interpersonal (63.50 %) generic competencies are in the process of achievement.

Conclusions: Significant and strong relationship was found between learning strategies and the achievement of generic competencies of undergraduate nursing students.