USING DALE CARNEGIE’S PRINCIPLES TO TEACH NURSING INFORMATICS ONLINE DURING A PANDEMIC

Abstract

Abstract

The coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic makes it vital for nursing students to have access to online education. Carnegie’s principles can engage students and decrease their stress in the learning process. Dale Carnegie’s principles were used as a teaching strategy by the same instructor in one of the two text-based online asynchronous courses on nursing informatics in the summers of 2020 and 2021. Students (n = 108) were randomly divided into two different sessions by the university’s registrar’s office. Students’ final grades and feedback to the two online evaluation surveys on course and faculty at the end of the semester were collected and analyzed. Students’ final grades and ratings on the course evaluation survey in Session 1 (93.84, 4.42) that incorporated Dale Carnegie's principles were significantly higher than those in Session 2 (96.22, 3.86, p < 0.01). Students’ ratings on the faculty evaluation survey in Session 1 (4.47) were also higher than those in Session 2 (3.8), although not significant (p = 0.16). There were more positive and fewer negative comments in Session 1 than in Session 2 in both surveys. Dale Carnegie’s principles provide an engaging method to teach graduate nursing students about nursing informatics. A positive learning environment created by Carnegie’s principles helps instructors increase students’ satisfaction and learning outcomes during stressful times.