USING CASE STUDIES TO ENHANCE CRITICAL THINKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING IN ONLINE LEARNING

Online education programs have gained in popularity in recent years especially targeting students who have basic technical skills but desire education leading to a professional degree. These students present unique challenges because they have acquired specific technical skills but lack creative problem solving and critical thinking skills associated with a profession. There has been little research done that investigates best practices for developing skills using online strategies.
Case studies are one method by which students can integrate concepts and knowledge and discover how these concepts relate to real life situations. Students can learn while actively engaged in problem solving related to specific situations that may be dynamic and changing. According to Azzarello and Wood, (2006), this involves use of cognitive processes in which the student develops a situational mental model (SMM) that assists in problem solving related to the current status of the situation. As the situation changes, the student must consider the dynamic nature of the situation and determine appropriate interventions.
The purpose of this project is to investigate the use of unfolding case studies in enhancing the learning of nursing students as they problem solve client situations related to chronic illness in online learning environment. Nurses who have completed two year technical education programs and desire to obtain advanced professional degrees are the selected for this investigation. Modern clinical practice in nursing demands that nurses have the ability to develop high quality critical thinking and problem solving skills. Unfolding case studies in online learning provide the opportunity for students to actively engage in integrating new concepts into their current practice.
Participants in an online program leading to a bachelor’s degree are required to complete an unfolding case study to demonstrate their ability to integrate new knowledge and concepts with current practice. They follow steps in developing the case study and are evaluated by their ability to problem solve the changing and dynamic scenario in the case study. Steps of the process are outlined and evaluation of learning are discussed. Advantages and disadvantages of the strategy will be explored and discussion of its application in online learning in other programs will be addressed. Finally, opportunities for future research will be discussed and possibilities for evidence based strategies addressed.