Nursing students’ experiences, perceptions and behavior in a flipped-classroom anatomy and physiology course

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore nursing students’ experiences, perceptions and behavior during a course on kidney and urinary system anatomy and physiology designed according to the flipped-classroom approach. In flipped-classroom teaching, students prepare for class by engaging with teacher-produced learning material, typically videos. This frees up time in class, which can instead be spent on various student-centered, active-learning activities. Only very few studies on the use of flipped classroom in nursing education have been published. Methods: Videos and active-learning activities were developed and used in a course with forty-eight first-year, first-semester nursing students at the School of Nursing, Campus Holstebro, VIA University College, Denmark. After completing the course, students were invited to participate in a survey. In addition, students’ use of videos was tracked during the course. Results: Students expressed a very high degree of satisfaction with the eight videos assigned, which they generally watched on the day before class. The videos helped them acquire knowledge and prepare for in-class, active-learning activities. Twenty-six percent of the students believed that the videos were better than face-to-face lectures with regard to learning outcome, 56% felt they were of equal benefit, and only 18% benefited most from face-to-face lectures. Only a small minority (18%) preferred traditional teaching over flipped classroom teaching, 41% preferred flipped classroom and 41% did not prefer one approach over the other. Conclusions: These results demonstrate that the flipped classroom is a valuable teaching approach in nursing education which can result in a high level of both student satisfaction and self-reported learning outcome.