Abstract:

As the population is becoming increasingly culturally diverse, there is a growing need for nurses to provide culturally competent care. It has been suggested that health disparities exist within in ethnic minorities and by providing culturally competent care could reduce disparities. The aim of the “TransCoCon: Developing Multimedia Learning for Transcultural Collaboration and Competence in Nursing (GA No 2017-1-UK01-KA203-036612) ERASMUS+ project has been to create innovative accessible multi-media learning resources that will enable undergraduate nursing students and registered nurse in five countries to develop knowledge and skills that enable self-efficacy to influence direct patient care.

A participatory approach based on the ASPIRE framework followed, in order to develop the multimedia learning resources, namely Reusable Learning Objects (RLOs). The ASPIRE framework stands for Aims, Storyboarding, Population, Implementation, Release and Evaluation and it includes the following steps:
i) Participatory Workshop,
ii) Specification writing,
iii) Peer Review of Specification – followed by amendments,
iv) Development of the RLO, v)Review of the RLO– followed by amendments,
vi) Evaluation with stakeholders– followed by amendments,
vii) Publish the RLO online.

The creation of an RLO is a time-consuming process, but in order to ensure its quality, peer review of the content (Specifications) before development, content and technical review once developed and evaluation from the stakeholders after amendments, are consider vital steps in the development process. This paper will present the evaluation of RLOs with stakeholders at 2 different stages of its development process aiming to discuss the value of the evaluation of the stakeholders at different stages of the process and not only once complete.

Four RLOs developed by four partners of the TransCoCon project are evaluated; two after the initial Specification developed using a University of Nottingham HELM team bespoke Specification tool that allows preview of the specification as an RLOs without the interactivity element, and two at the initial stage of development (alpha prototype). Each RLO was evaluated by 23 nursing students or registered nurses. The result of the evaluation was generally consistent across the 4 RLOs. Most participants agreed that the RLOs were clear about its objectives, easy to navigate and have introduced new concepts. On top of that, majority of the participants agreed that the content was appropriate for the topic and have enjoyed learning on their own. In terms of attributes that have contributed or might contribute once developed to their learning, interactivity, self-test exercises, working at own pace, ability to access the RLO anytime and from anywhere were found important by most participants.

Since RLOs were on a prototype phase or on a specification preview, technical problems identified by the participants in all 4 RLOs. Technical problems seem to influence the perception of the participants around the reuse of other RLOs. Over 60% of the participants would like more of these learning objects in their University modules and over 50% intend to use the learning objects again, however those numbers are low in comparison with evaluations of complete RLOs.

Acknowledgments:
This work was supported by TransCoCon, a project funded under the ERASMUS+ Programme of the European Union, (GA No 2017-1-UK01-KA203-036612).

Keywords:

Co-design, end-users, co-creation, open education resources, digital learning design, transcultural competences in nursing.