The effect of cooperative learning method on nursing students' knowledge, psychomotor skills and anxiety levels in standardized patient application

The study was carried out in experimental design with post test control group to investigate the effect of cooperative learning method on nursing students' knowledge, psychomotor skills and anxiety levels in standardized patient application. The sample of the study consisted of 60 students (experiment: 30, control: 30) from the first year students (N = 172) of Düzce University Faculty of Health Sciences Nursing Department in 2017-2018 Spring semester. The experimental group learned the skills of measuring arterial blood pressure and subcutaneous injection by cooperative learning method and the control group learned by traditional learning method. With the scenario, all students performed standardized patient simulation. The data were collected by using the "Personal Information Form", "Knowledge Evaluation Form", "Skill Evaluation Form", "Spielberger State Anxiety Scale", "Debriefing Form". Descriptive statistics, independent samples t test, Mann Whitney U and chi-square test were used to analyze the datas. According to the findings of the study, no significant difference was found between the arterial blood pressure measurement information scores between the groups, knowledge score of subcutaneous injection of the experimental group was significantly higher than the control group (p˂0.001). The skill scores of both applications of the students in the experimental group were found to be significantly higher than the control group (p˂0.001). State anxiety levels of the students in the experimental group (28.8±5.4) were found to be significantly lower than the students in the control group (39.5±10.4) (p˂0.001). When the students' opinions about the practice were evaluated, it was determined that the students in the experimental group felt less anxiety, the group friends gave them confidence, and they evaluated their the level of performing skills better. About the practice with standardized patients, students emphasized areas of communicating with patients, understanding patient's responses and reducing the anxiety they might experience when they are clinical areas, and the majority of the students did not express a negative opinion about practice. The cooperative learning method used in standardized patient application is effective in increasing students' knowledge and skill levels and decreasing their anxiety levels. Key words: Anxiety, Knowledge and skill level, Nursing education, Cooperative learning, Standardized patient simulation