Teaching Nursing Students about the Basic Principles of Infection Control: Programmed Instruction or Lecture Method

Introduction. Programmed instruction (PI) and lecture based learning have been compared in previous studies in the world, but due to special condition of education in nursing, the effects of these two methods have been less investigated in Iranian universities. This study attempts to compare the effect of these two educational methods on nursing students' learning about the basic principles of infection control. Methods. In this quasi-experimental study, 103 second-year baccalaureate (B.S) nursing students were selected by purposive sampling and then were randomly assigned to two groups (52 in experimental using self-learning method and 51 in control group taught by lecture method). Both groups were tested by similar pre and post tests and the content of teaching was the same for both of them but with different teaching methods. The experimental group was also given an opinionnaire about the programmed instruction at the end. Two weeks after the post-test, an unannounced test (delay test) was administered to both groups. The data were analyzed by SPSS software using frequency distribution, mean and standard deviation, t-test and paired t-test. Results. There was a significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores in both groups. Also, nursing students who completed an infection control programmed instruction, scored higher on post-test than those who attended the lecture method class. The difference between the mean scores of post and delay tests was significant in experimental group but it didn't show a significant difference in the control group. The mean of the necessary time for studying modules was 35.6 minutes less than lecture presentation, and 85.4% of students preferred PI method and found the content meaningful. Conclusion. This study showed that self-managed learning in the form of PI is an acceptable method for teaching the basic principles of infection control to nursing students. It is recommended to use this method more in education.