Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
and their opinion of the exercise. The questionnaire had three
sections:
1) The first section of the questionnaire consisted of a list of closed
questions with yes or no answers about the exercise itself.
2) The second section consisted of 23 aspects of nursing. Students
were asked to rate their own perception of their knowledge from
very poor to excellent both before and after the exercise. The
questions fell under the four category headings previously
identified.
3) The final section consisted of three open ended questions to
complement the quantitative data collected.
No demographic information was collected as this may have led to
the identification of individual students. Sixty-eight of the ninety
students who participated in the exercise completed the
questionnaire giving a response rate of 75.5%.
Ethical approval was received from the Research Ethics committee
in DCU
Data Analysis
Quantitative data was analysed using non-parametric statistics in
SPSS. This was appropriate to the level of data collected. The open
ended questions were analysed manually and coded into common
themes.
Summary of key findings
Answers to the general questions in the first section suggest that
the exercise was viewed positively by students and did contribute to
their knowledge.
� 95.6% of students enjoyed the exercise.
� 97.1% of students would recommend the exercise to other
students
� 94.1% would do the exercise again
� 96.6% felt the exercise reflected the reality of the clinical
environment
� 82.4% felt it increased their confidence in their own ability
� 95.6% felt the experience gained in the exercise would help
them in their role as a staff nurse
Students were asked if the exercise helped to consolidate their
knowledge under the four key headings identified. The results are
outlined in table 1.
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