Social interactivity as driver and digital technology as vehicle: Facilitating affective domain learning for undergraduates

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceptions of the integration of digital technology into a Pre-Registration Nursing degree programme. This process illuminated student perceptions of the impact of the digital technology platform on the context of work-based learning and also potential employability in the future.

Design/methodology/approach

Adopting design research as an overarching methodological approach for this study enabled application of the phenomena of complex curriculum justification, design and development to an observable context. In its rawest form, this was a pragmatic and relatively a theoretical approach, nevertheless underpinned by robust mixed-methods framework, incorporating anecdote circles. Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-phase approach to thematic analysis was adopted as a systematic, yet recursive, approach to inductive qualitative analysis.

Findings

Results of this pedagogical study were consistent with the stance that technology enhanced learning has a tangible impact on the socio-cognitive learning of students by providing a mechanism for engaging with decision making, problem solving and reflexive praxis. In particular, the Nurse Navigator System was perceived as a mechanism of enhancing the potential for the establishment of communities of practice in which the co-construction of meaningful knowledge about patient care could be established.

Research limitations/implications

This pedagogical study was context specific to the curriculum model operationalised at the University of Sunderland and as such the perceptions captured are not generalizable but rather provide an insight into student perceptions of the implementation of the digital technology in the context of work-based learning and also the perceived impact on employability that this might have in the future.

Practical implications

Pivotal to the success of this, though, is the capacity of clinical and academic staff who can facilitate this sufficiently well in practice and a period of preparation for students so that they can understand the distinction between cognitive, psychomotor and affective domain learning and the places and integration of each across an academic curriculum.

Social implications

The study revealed the concept of social interactivity for affective domain learning was impacted positively upon by the integration of technology enhanced learning (i.e. the Nurse Navigator System).

Originality/value

This pedagogical research provides a fundamentally unique consideration of the perceived potential impact of a digital technology platform to affective domain learning. Since this is imperative to the tacit knowledge nursing students gain during their education and training for this specific vocational and academic field this is of great value to educationalists in the nursing and allied health fields. The methodological approach adopted also has capacity for transferability to these professions.

Citation

Hayes, C. and Graham, Y. (2020), "Social interactivity as driver and digital technology as vehicle: Facilitating affective domain learning for undergraduates", Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 313-324. https://doi.org/10.1108/HESWBL-05-2019-0068