Percepción de los estudiantes de enfermería sobre la eficacia de la WebQuest en el desarrollo de competencias

Resumen

WebQuest may be defined as an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Internet (Dodge, 1995; March, 2004). The WebQuest methodology is based on a collaborative and cooperative learning process (Dodge, 1995), research-oriented and student-centred (Russell et al, 2008), which uses the World Wibe Web (Lahaie, 2007), and has the potential to improve the learning skills when used properly (Drozd y O´Donoghue, 2007). The aim of this study is to analyse the perception of the nursing students related to the WebQuest efficacy in terms of developing competences as well as to determine the acceptance level of students towards this new methodology 128 first-year nursing students participated in the study. They were divided in two groups where the autonomous learning was prioritized in group A while blended learning was the priority used in group B In both groups, their degree of satisfaction was high. The competences most developed were “acquiring knowledge and putting it into practice” (92.4%), “planning and organising” (84.9%), “teamwork” (80.7%) and “use of IT tools” (63.6%). Group A students improved their “ability to gather information”(p=0.003) while Group B students improved their “oral communication” (p=0.001), “creativity” (p=0.008) and “leadership” (p=0.001). 94% stated having difficulties working in a collaborative fashion. 21% of the students experience difficulty to integrate different points of view. The students have considered the WebQuest as a useful and valid tool in order to improve their competences. Among the negative aspects, students emphasised the difficulty to carry out the activity. It was proven that there were difficulties when analysing the quality of healthcare-related websites and when performing scientific searches in electronic database. We think that the methodology used in Group B has been more effective.