Abstract

The aim of this pedagogical research was to investigate the perceptions of the integration of digital technology into a Pre-Registration Nursing degree programme. This process illuminated student perceptions of the impact of the digital technology platform on the context of work based learning and also potential employability in the future.
Adopting Design Research as an overarching methodological approach for this study enabled application of the phenomena of complex curriculum justification, design, and development to an observable context. In its rawest form, this was a pragmatic and relatively atheoretical approach, nevertheless underpinned by robust mixed-methods framework, incorporating anecdote circles. Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-phase approach to thematic analysis was adopted as a systematic, yet recursive, approach to inductive qualitative analysis.
Results of this pedagogical study were consistent with the stance that technology enhanced learning has a tangible impact on the socio-cognitive learning of students by providing a mechanism for engaging with decision making, problem solving and reflexive praxis. In particular, the Nurse Navigator System was perceived as a mechanism of enhancing the potential for the establishment of communities of practice in which the co-construction of meaningful knowledge about patient care could be established.
This pedagogical study was context specific to the curriculum model operationalised at the University of Sunderland and as such the perceptions captured are not generalisable but rather provide an insight into student perceptions of the implementation of the digital technology in the context of work based learning and also the perceived impact on employability that this might have in the future.
Pivotal to the success of the integration of a digital technology platform designed to increase levels of social interactivity is the capacity of clinical and academic staff who can facilitate this sufficiently well in practice and a period of preparation for students so that they can understand the distinction between cognitive, psychomotor and affective domain learning and the places and integration of each across an academic curriculum.
This pedagogical research provides a fundamentally unique consideration of the perceived potential impact of a digital technology platform to affective domain learning. SInce this is imperative to the tacit knowledge nursing students gain during their education and training for this specific vocational and academic field this is of great value to educationalists in the nursing and allied health fields. The methodological approach adopted also has capacity for transferability to these professions.