Using on-line video clips to enhance self-efficacy toward dealing with difficult situations among nursing students

The aim of the study was twofold. The first aim was to develop on-tine video clip material that showed examples of nurses dealing with potentially difficult and delicate patient groups. The second aim was to evaluate the effectiveness of video clip materials for enhancing nursing student's self-efficacy to effectively communicate with the type of patients described above. The production of contextually relevant video clip material involved the identification of relevant material based on real experiences, writing appropriate scripts, recruiting actors, recording the performances and producing them in a form that could be accessed on-line. Self-report questionnaires were used to assess the effectiveness of video clip material. Level 1 (n = 145) nursing students completed a self-efficacy measure that assessed confidence to deal with situations such as breaking news of death, working with children, people with disability and aggressive behaviour at the start and the end of the module. Results indicated that student's self-efficacy increased noticeably over the course of the module. Differences between increases in self-efficacy attributed to watching videos or attending lectures were marginal. Findings suggest that using video clips that show students effectively coping with adverse situations provide an effective teaching approach for enhancing self-efficacy. Future research is needed to test the extent to which self-efficacy measures relate with nursing performance. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.