Effectiveness of a Research Program Regarding the Selflearning of Nursing Students during the COVID-19

Abstract

Introduction: During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was urgent to promote selflearning in undergraduate students from the first cycle of nursing training, in order for them to have, when working, the experience of achieving selflearning through some program with patients.

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of a introductory research program with respect to selflearning in nursing students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: A quantitative, analytical and quasiexperimental study was carried out. A total of 140 university nursing students from Peru participated during 2022. The intervention consisted applying the introductory research program (independent variable) to selflearning (dependent variable), by means of a pretest and posttest adapted from Lopez-Aguado and validated with an Aiken’s V coefficient of 0.78 and Cronbach’s alpha reliability of 0.91. Hypothesis testing was done by mean difference.

Results: After the development of the introductory research program, selflearning was achieved at a regular level. The amount of qualitative ratings in the posttest was almost twice as high as their corresponding dimensions in the pretest. The difference in the mean ratings was significant for the affective (10.73), cognitive (9.47) and study planning (8.87) dimensions.

Conclusions: The introductory research program was effective in undergraduate nursing students of the first cycle of 2022 because, in 3 of 4 dimensions, significant mean differences were obtained; with the exception of the metacognitive dimension.