Perception of the utilization of teaching methods by student nurses in South-east Nigeria: A Cross-sectional study

Aim: The study aims to ascertain the student’s perception of the utilization of teaching methods by nurse educators in nursing education institutions in southeast Nigeria. Design: A cross-sectional study design was used. Method: Multistage sampling was employed to randomly select 11 nursing education institutions in south east Nigeria. Data was collected from 328 students using a self-administered questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS version 21. Hypotheses were tested using the Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis test at the 0.05 significance level. Result: All 328 student nurses completely filled out and returned the distributed questionnaire. Of the respondents, 83.2% were female, and 16.8% were male. Most nurse educators were perceived to use all the enumerated teaching methods optimally, except for the introduction of games during teaching. However, 97.2% of the students preferred all the identified teaching methods for various reasons. The demographic profile of students (gender, year of study, except age) significantly influenced their perception of the teaching methods utilized by the educators. Conclusion: Students acquire nursing skills through formal instruction and practical experiences, as seen in the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition (2004) and student preferred teaching methods that enhance exchange of ideas and interactive Ness. Hence, nurse educators should consider student nurses age and preferred teaching styles to ensure well imparted knowledge.