A comparison of teaching strategies: lecture notes combined with structured group discussion versus lecture only.

In this study, we compared two teaching strategies: lecture notes combined with structured group discussion versus lecture only. We sought to help nurse educators identify the most effective teaching strategies for nursing students. We compared the examination scores of two groups of students who took a 3-credit medical-surgical nursing course. The control group (N = 88) received lecture only as the teaching method, whereas the experimental group (N = 81) received word-processed lecture notes along with structured group discussion. A one-tailed, independent sample t test was used to compare the mean examination scores of the two groups. The chi-square test was used to determine whether a significant difference existed between the course-passing rates of the two groups. The results showed a statistically significant difference between the means of the experimental and control groups. However, no statistically significant difference existed between the course-passing rate of students in the experimental group and that of students in the control group. These results provide strong support for the use of lecture notes in conjunction with structured group discussion as a teaching strategy. We recommend replicating this study using samples from other courses, and conducting further studies that include students' NCLEX-RN results as a third dependent variable.