THE EFFECT OF AN EXPERIMENTAL TEACHING STRATEGY ON PROBLEM SOLVING ABILITIES OF SOPHOMORE NURSING STUDENTS

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a specific teaching strategy on the ability of sophomore nursing students to solve unfamiliar problems. The strategy was designed to assist the students in the discovery of concepts and generalizations. It consisted of a sequence of questions. It was hypothesized that students participating in the experimental teaching strategy would achieve a significantly higher score on a test of problem solving skills, and would choose actions which exhibit a greater understanding of nursing care than students in the control groups. It was also hypothesized that cognitive training would have differing effects on students with different academic aptitude. While the study failed to provide evidence to support the main hypothesis, it did demonstrate that when the process of discovery was emphasized students performed at least as well as did the control group on a test designed to measure understanding of nursing care. The study corroborated Taba's findings of a low correlation between level of previous academic achievement and performance on the criterion test (3).