The Effects of Lessons using Action Learning on Nursing Students

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of action learning on critical thinking disposition, communicative competence, and problem-solving ability in nursing students. Methods The design for this was a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design was used for identification of the effects of lessons using action learning. The consenting participants were 184 fourth-year nursing students in D-city (Experimental group=95, Control group=89). Data was collected and the program was conducted from May 2 to July 19, 2015. Data was analyzed with an χ2-test, a t-test, and a paired t-test and utilized the SPSS win 21.0 program. Results There were significant differences in critical thinking ability (t=5.00, p<.001), problem-solving ability (t=4.52, p<.001), and communicative competence (t=4.97, p<.001) in the experimental group compared to the control group. Conclusion The study findings suggest that action-learning programs have proven to be an effective educational program for improving the critical thinking ability, problem solving ability, and communicative competence of nursing students. Action learning can be an effective teaching strategy.