Abstract:

Communication and interpersonal skills are a key element in nursing profession. Communication is identified as one of the essential skills that students must acquire in order to make progress through their education and training to become qualified nurses (NMC, 2010). In this study, we compare the cooperative learning and traditional learning methods in theory
classes on nursing students' communication skills in the oral public exposition. We propose a practical classroom-tested assignment for facilitating a structured assessment of the interpersonal skills in nursing students.

The main objectives are:
1. Comparing two group (control and experimental) to evaluate the main differences in a traditional learning context and in the alternative learning context.
2. Communicating safely and effectively.
3. Share strategies and best practice with colleagues and with the use of multimedia resources (forum, web page, etc.).
4. Create a working and cooperative environment among students.
5. Promote auto learning (included in the Bologna plan).

Design and sample:
An experimental, observer-blinded design was chosen for this study. This study was conducted during the classroom of communication skills in the 2012. The sample population for this study consisted of nursing students registered to the program. A total of 80 students were selected, They were divided randomly into two groups, a control group (n= 40) who were taught their nursing course by traditional learning method and an experimental group (n= 40), who
were taught the same material using alternative learning method.

Instrument:
A satisfaction questionnaire of 15 items.
Oral exposition of 20 minutes about an specific topic.

Results:
The mean age of the participants was 21.22 years 70.93% of the participants were female.
The results showed that the experimental group was more satisfied than control group and they improved their speaking skills in public context.

Conclusion:
This study provides evidence that cooperative learning is an effective method for improved and increased communication skills of nursing students.. It is recommended to increase nursing students' participation in argument by applying active teaching methods which can provide the opportunity for increase communication skills.

Keywords:

Communication classroom, teaching-learning process, virtual methodology.