title: Using podcasts to help students apply health informatics concepts: benefits and unintended consequences.
abstract: Despite requirements for robust health informatics education, a multitude of educators and policy analysts report that programs are not adequately preparing nurses to handle the bevy of technologies that will be a part of their practice. A series of 14 "Podcasted" exemplars were developed to help graduate online students visualize the application of health informatics concepts in real-world settings and to determine the impact of podcasting on student cognition, engagement, and satisfaction. Although no significant differences in student cognition scores or student engagement were found between course conditions, course satisfaction was significantly higher in Podcasted weeks of the course. Also, student engagement was positively correlated with aspects of course satisfaction and overall cognition scores under both course conditions. This result suggests that student engagement plays an important mediating role in improving cognition. Students' use of podcasting did produce a temporary drop in scores for one group; therefore, more research is needed to understand these unintended consequences. With distance/online education becoming mainstream, it is imperative that faculty deploy and confirm ways to improve student cognition, engagement, and satisfaction.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA. juameek@iupui.edu
authors.forename: Julie A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Meek
authors.forename: Mikyoung
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Josette
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.forename: Naomi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mutea
authors.forename: Anthony
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Prizevoits
mesh_terms: D003071:Cognition; D018592:Cross-Over Studies; D004511:Education, Nursing, Graduate / Q000379:methods*; D004521:Educational Measurement; D006801:Humans; D015402:Nursing Education Research; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research; D048108:Nursing Informatics / Q000193:education*; D018570:Risk Assessment; D013338:Students, Nursing / Q000523:psychology*; D057211:Webcasts as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*