title: Nursing student's evaluation of a virtual classroom experience in support of their learning Bioscience.
abstract: Face-to-face communication with students remains the gold standard in teaching; the effectiveness of this approach to learning is commonly and regularly assessed by students' evaluation of teaching and peer reviews of teaching. Critics note that increases in on-line education are driven more by economic forces than consistent evidence to show their long-term effectiveness or acceptance by students. Numerous studies report that students in higher education found their external studies comparatively more challenging than face-to-face delivery. Identifying how educators might best provide sufficient and effective personal support for students studying in the external mode continues to challenge educators. Opportunities do exist for blending on-line course work with synchronous interactions between students and their teachers but evaluations of these innovations rarely appear in the literature. In this study, a web-based virtual classroom simulated the synchronous face-to-face discussions that occur between Bachelor of Nursing students and tutors. First year students enrolled externally in a biological science course interacted in a virtual classroom for 13 weeks completing an 'evaluation of experience' survey following their final assessment. A comparison was made between 'on-campus' and 'external to campus' students to determine the relationship between i) overall satisfaction with the course and ii) final grades, as well as their experience of the virtual class.
authors.affiliation: University of South Australia, School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, GPO Box 2471, Adelaide, South Australia 5001, Australia. Electronic address: jackie.oflaherty@unisa.edu.au.
authors.forename: Jacqueline A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: O'Flaherty
authors.affiliation: University of South Australia, School of Nursing and Midwifery, GPO Box 2471, Adelaide, South Australia 5001, Australia. Electronic address: tom.laws@unisa.edu.au.
authors.forename: Thomas A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Laws
mesh_terms: D001690:Biological Science Disciplines / Q000193:education*; D020375:Education, Distance; D004508:Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate; D006801:Humans; D013338:Students, Nursing / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013685:Telecommunications; D014584:User-Computer Interface
keywords: Bioscience; Blended learning; Distance learning; E conferencing; Nursing; Virtual classroom; Web conferencing