International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health Tiwari SK et al. Int J Community Med Public Health. 2021 Sep;8(9):4439-4445 http://www.ijcmph.com pISSN 2394-6032 | eISSN 2394-6040
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20213549
Original Research Article
Self-efficacy of online learning among nursing students during
COVID-19 pandemic
Surya Kant Tiwari1, Saumya P. Srivastava2*
1Nursing Lecturer, Yatharth Nursing College and Paramedical Institute, Chandauli, Uttar Pradesh, India 2Nursing Tutor, Vivekananda College of Nursing, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India Received: 28 June 2021 Revised: 06 August 2021 Accepted: 07 August 2021 *Correspondence: Dr. Saumya P. Srivastava, E-mail: saumyasrivastava121994@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
ABSTRACT Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to unprecedented effect over the nursing education. First time exposure of the nursing students with the digital learning has raised a question regarding their self-efficacy in navigating the online courses effectively. This study aimed to assess the self- efficacy of online learning among nursing students during Covid-19 pandemic. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional web-based survey was conducted between May to June 2021 to assess the self- efficacy of online learning among nursing students in India. Data collection was done through Google forms that was sent to all the potential respondents through email, messenger and whatsapp. Online learning self-efficacy scale (OLSES) was used for assessing the efficacy of online learning. Results: Online survey was completed by 332 nursing students from various nursing colleges of Uttar Pradesh and New Delhi, India. Majority (81.6%) of the participants were female. Nearly half (50.9%) of them were satisfied with the online classes. Maximum (77.4%) had poor self- efficacy scores in learning domain. Only 77 (23.2%) of students had overall good online learning self-efficacy. Conclusions: The study revealed that majority of the nursing students had poor overall as well as domain wise online learning self-efficacy scores, which highlights the need for urgent identification of possible predictors. Appropriate skill-based trainings should be designed and provided to the students before exposing them to the online learning. This will aid them in gaining confidence and mastery in the skill of navigating the online courses. Keywords: Self- efficacy, Online learning, Nursing education, COVID-19 Pandemic, Nursing students
INTRODUCTION
The Novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (2019-nCoV) was originally started as an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown etiology in Wuhan, and was declared a global pandemic by World Health Organization (WHO) on 11th March, 2020.1,2 Rapidly escalating pandemic crisis has affected every aspect of human life, with potentially devastating social, economic and political implications (United Nations Development Programme 2020).
In order to mitigate the effect of pandemic, Indian government has adopted various strategies which included social distancing measures, suspension of mass gatherings, suspension of public transports and the provisional closure of schools and educational institutions.3,4 It led to the transposition in the entire dimensions of societal activities predominantly recreational and educational activities.5 The unsolicited closure of educational institutions modified the complete prospect of education. As a consequence, the introduction of online system of education became a
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requisite to ensure the unhindered delivery of educational activities and this way, institutions were bound to reframe their curriculum accordingly.6
This unexpected transition of educational system led to uncertainties among the nursing students. Many of the students expressed their concerns regarding the interruption of the programme following their removal from the clinical areas, which made them less confident and unsure about the progression of their course.7 Moreover, students also faced several challenges related to technology infrastructure and support, time management, learning space, family, and work. They were skeptical regarding virtual communication through an online platform; and were not sure when and how to ask queries. Furthermore, connectivity issues and distractions in the learning environments were the major impediments.7
Despite many negative aspects related to dependence on technology for education, there were numerous benefits witnessed by the students, which included availability of recorded lectures for revision among many others.7 Although, many researches have been done lately in the context of digital education in the field of nursing education. Still, there is a dearth of evidences regarding the self-efficacy of nursing students with respect to navigating their courses online. For this reason, it is important to evaluate if these current online teaching methods are feasible and efficacious as in-class teaching. Self-efficacy is the belief we have in our own abilities, specifically our ability to meet the challenges ahead of us and complete a task successfully.8 Current situation has posed many academic challenges for the students as online learning has become a necessity rather than an option, with this the students are required to accomplish multiple tasks associated with digital learning which includes joining the sessions, sending the assignments through mail, communicating with the teachers etc. Therefore, the present study was planned to assess the self-efficacy of online learning among nursing students during COVID-19 pandemic. This knowledge will help nursing faculty in identifying and eventually overcoming various barriers related to digital learning and will assist them in incorporating novel methodologies to make teaching and learning process more student friendly and efficacious.
METHODS
A web-based cross-sectional survey was conducted among nursing students of various schools and colleges of nursing in Uttar Pradesh and New Delhi India. The study was conducted between May to June 2021 with the purpose of assessing the self-efficacy of online learning among nursing students. Data collection was done by investigators with the help of questionnaire created through Google forms that was send to all the potential respondents through email, messenger and WhatsApp. By aid of snowball sampling, they were requested to forward the survey link to their batch mates, juniors and seniors so as to obtain maximum participation. The questionnaire clearly
explained the objectives of the study and participants were provided the option to withdraw voluntarily if appropriate. Inclusion criteria of the study were: nursing students who gave their consent for participation, having smart phones and access to internet, and currently taking scheduled and regular online classes conducted by the institutes. Students were excluded if they were not taking prescribed online classes on regular basis.
Sample size
Sample size was calculated by taking 99% confidence level, 10% margin of error and 50% population proportion, which came out to be 167; we managed to get 332 responses in our study which is our final sample size. Data was collected unanimously; investigators refrained from collecting any information which can reveal the identity of respondents.
Questionnaire
Various information was collected pertaining to the study such as age, gender, academic year of study, course, platform used for online learning etc. with the help of self- developed tool. The efficacy of online learning was assessed using standardized online learning self-efficacy scale (OLSES) originally developed by Zimmerman et al.9 Permission was obtained for using and modifying the tool. OLSES consists of three subscales, these are: learning in the online environment (É‘=0.890), time management (É‘=0.855) and technology use (É‘=0.843). Subscales were further divided into twenty-two tasks which were rated by the participants on a six-point scale. A rating of one signified very poor level of task performance by the participants; while rating of six indicated that participants can perform the task with excellency. Maximum score of the scale was calculated to be 132, Score higher than 80% (i.e., 105) was considered as overall good self-efficacy in online learning.
Statistical analysis
The collected data were coded and summarized in master data sheet using Microsoft excel spreadsheet. Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) 20.0 version was used for the data analysis; both descriptive and inferential statistics were analysed. Descriptive statistics included frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and range. Chi-square test was used to find out the association between selected variables and overall online learning self- efficacy scores. The level of significance was set at p˂0.05.
RESULTS
The present online survey was completed by 332 nursing students. Mean age of participants was 21.45±2.9 years with majority (81.6%) being female. Participants predominantly (51.2%) belonged to a joint family, and (60.8%) of them resided in rural area. Majority (62.7%) of the participants were pursuing B.Sc. (N) course. (Table 1).
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Table 1: Socio-demographic characteristics of the
participants (n=332).
Approximately half (52.4%) of participants had no exposure to online classes before the outbreak of COVID- 19 pandemic. Participants predominantly were using mobile phones with cellular data for attending online classes.
The study also found that, zoom was the commonly used platform among many others for accessing the classes. Majority (85.2%) of the participants believed that online learning should be continued during Covid-19 pandemic which may be attributed to safety concerns of the students (Table 2). Surprisingly, it was found that most (42.8%) of students were satisfied with the online classes (Figure 1). Online learning self-efficacy of participants as measured by OLSES is explained in Table 3.
Table 2: Online class related characteristics of
participants (n=332).
Figure 1: Perceived level of satisfaction from online
classes.
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Table 3: Online learning self-efficacy of participants (n=332).
Table 4 explains domain-wise and overall self-efficacy of online learning among participants. Mean scores of learning, technical, time management sub-domains and
overall online learning self-efficacy was found to be 38.58±11.32, 27.68±7.47, 20.10±6.02, and 86.36±24.06 respectively. It was seen that, in all of the sub-domains of
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online learning, majority of participants had poor self- efficacy. Only 23.2% of the participants had overall good online learning self-efficacy.
Table 5 shows that there is a statistically significant association between overall online learning self-efficacy
scores with the type of course (p=0.045), views regarding continuation of online classes during the pandemic (p=0.001) and level of satisfaction from online classes (p=0.001).
Table 4: Table 4: Domain-wise and overall self-efficacy of online learning among participants (n=332).
Table 5: association between selected variables and overall online learning self-efficacy.
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DISCUSSION
The present study was conducted with the purpose of finding out the self-efficacy of nursing students with regard to online learning. The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the country, and educational system even worse. Due to the containment measures being taken by the Indian Government, substitution of traditional face to face education with the online classes was the only option left for all the nursing institutes for ensuring the continuity of nursing education. In our study, it was found that more than half of the participants had no exposure to online education before the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. This raises significant apprehensions about their skills to successfully accomplish the tasks associated with digital learning. Therefore, the study was formulated to assess the self- efficacy of online learning among nursing students.
Majority of the students in our study were from rural area and it was found that more than 80% of them had access to internet facility at their home and were using smart mobile phones for attending online classes through zoom platform, indicating that smart mobile phones are popular mode of attending online classes. Similar findings were reported by several other studies.9,10
This study revealed that nearly half (50.9%) of the participants were satisfied with the online classes which is line with the findings of study conducted by Dipti Koirala et al in which two third of the respondents (63.2%) were satisfied with the conduction of online classes.10 Sharma et al also highlighted that (53.5%) students were satisfied.11 And, only 16.8% (n=73) were dissatisfied with the online classes. Present study suggests that majority (85.2%) of the students supports conduction of online classes during this pandemic situation, which is similar to the findings of a study conducted by Dost et al who reported that students find online learning more advantageous as it helps them in studying at their own pace, reduces anxiety and allows preparation for clinical placements.12 Panda et al in his
study reported that internet speed and technical issues were major barriers, whereas flexibility, availability of content for revision and fewer distractions were the positive features of online learning.13
The current study highlighted that more than three-fourth (76.8%) of the nursing students had poor online learning self-efficacy scores in all the domains. Additionally, scores were also poor for majority of the participants in learning, technical and time management aspects.
Findings of our study are intriguing for the entire nursing fraternity including all those who are involved in framing and delivering the educational course to the students. It goes without saying that students should possess good self- efficacy for traversing the tasks associated with online learning, and it is a pre-requisite for the successful conduction of digital classes. Our study discovered significant lack in the level of self-efficacy of nursing students pertaining to online education; indicating the need for introducing specific training modules and demonstration classes. This will enable the students to achieve mastery in the tasks associated with e-learning such as submitting the assignments through email, asking queries, connecting to the online platforms etc. Furthermore, studies should be conducted to evaluate various barriers and determinants associated with online learning self-efficacy among nursing students and the effect of poor online learning self-efficacy over the academic performance of students. Some of the strengths of our study include use of standardized questionnaire and adequate sample size, also this is the first study that evaluates the level of self-efficacy of nursing students related to online education.
Limitations
Cross-sectional design and self-reported tool limits the generalizability of findings.
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CONCLUSION
The study revealed higher level of satisfaction of participants with online classes, though they were satisfied, but majority demonstrated poor self-efficacy, perhaps due to first time exposure with this novel method of teaching and learning. Therefore, specific training modules should be designed by the faculty and teaching institutions to train the students in navigating the online courses effectively.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank all the participants in this study.
Funding: No funding sources Conflict of interest: None declared Ethical approval: The study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee
REFERENCES
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Cite this article as: Tiwari SK, Srivastava SP. Self- efficacy of online learning among nursing students during COVID-19 pandemic. Int J Community Med Public Health 2021;8:4439-45.
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