Nursing Students' Satisfaction with E-Learning Concerning Students' Learning Style Preference during COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

: Introduction: The coronavirus pandemic has impacted human life and medical education. With the spread of COVID-19 worldwide, many countries declared e-learning education as an alternative method to ensure students continue learning. Being aware of students learning styles can help them find the appropriate ways to learn and benefit from these styles in their future professional journeys. Objective: The study aimed to assess nursing students' satisfaction with e-learning concerning their learning style during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Method: A cross-sectional descriptive design was adopted. The study was conducted at Modern University for Technology and Information, Faculty of Nursing, Egypt. The sample size was 279 students. A self-administered questionnaire was used, including; demographic data, E-learning student satisfaction, and VARK Standard Learning Style Questionnaire version 8.01. Results: It revealed that 64.2% of them were male, 66.3% of their age group was 22≤ 27 y ears old, and 85.7% used smartphones as preferred devices for e-learning. There was a significant association between students' learning styles and their level of satisfaction at p < 0.05. There was a highly statistically significant association between the studied students' age and learning styles, where χ 2 = 453.9 at p <0.001. Also, there was a statistically significant association between students' registered level and preferred learning styles, where χ 2 = 85.3 at p <0.05. Conclusion: most of the participated students were satisfied with e-learning classes and had a unimodal learning style preference, followed by those who had multimodal learning styles. In addition, more than one-third of them prefer the unimodal and multimodal style in the responses to the VARK learning inventory, including Aural, read/write, and kinesthetic. Recommendations: the research finding helps the nursing educators to utilize the appropriate teaching methods and strategies appropriate teaching methods to enhance students' learning efficiency, satisfaction, and achievement according to their learning style. Considering students' learning styles during the e-learning classes, including watching videos, will enhance the students' learning achievements. Teaching materials applied during e-learning should include creative activities to promote students' motivation, perception, satisfaction, and accomplishments.