Enhancing nursing students’ skills in vital signs assessment by using multimedia computer-assisted learning with integrated content of anatomy and physiology

Due to constraints of increasing number of nursing students and a disproportionate shortfall of faculty members in nursing schools, it was necessary to supplement traditional lecture or lecture-demonstration with on-line multimedia materials and/or multimedia compact discs for enhancing learning. The authors have developed a computer-assisted learning (CAL) multimedia on vital signs with animation and audio features for teaching in the classroom based on the 5Es inquiry cycle. When the CAL was tried on second-year undergraduates in two comparable schools, all groups of students gained significantly higher performance skills regardless of whether the groups were subjected to CAL/lecture or CAL/lecture/demonstration. However, they did not gain in factual knowledge.