Strategies to enhance the usage of an e-learning system for nurses' professional development / Abel Jacobus Pienaar

• Main Author: Pienaar, Abel Jacobus
• Language: en
• Published: North West University 2014
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10394/12803

The potential of e-learning to deliver innovative approaches in nursing education is accepted globally. Currently this acceptance is fuelled in South Africa by the publication of the White Paper on e-Education by the Department of Education in order to ratify e-Learning. Except for the pressure from the Department of Education, nurses are coerced to use e-Learning due to the severe shortage of nurses in clinical practice, the need for further education as well as the facilitation of professional development. The National Department of Health identified e-Learning as a method to bridge the current challenge in professional development. E-learning may be viewed as an ideal method to facilitate learning innovatively, not only in the general education, but also nursing education and professional development. In response to the quest for professional development for nurses in the public hospital context, Mindset Health, that is part of Mindset Network, developed an e-Learning system for nurses' professional evelopment. Contrary to expectations, nurses are not utilising this e-Learning system in the public hospitals. A question therefore arose: Why are nurses not using the Mindset Health e-Learning system effectively for their professional development in a public hospital setting? This research aimed to enhance the usage of the Mindset Health e-Learning system for nurses' professional development in a public hospital setting. In this research a single qualitative case study was deployed. This case included a public hospital setting, where the Mindset Health e-Learning system had been installed to facilitate professional development for nurses. Data were collected through multiple qualitative methods. A qualitative methodology was used to establish why the Mindset e-Learning system was not effectively utilised by the nurses. The same methodology was applied to determine in which ways the utilisation, through an Appreciative Inquiry strategy of the Mindset Health e-Learning system, could enhance nurses' professional development in future. The findings of this research mainly suggested that the inadequate training and motivation of the nurses working in the in-service training department, regarding the Mindset Health e-Learning system during implementation, had led to the lack of use of the Mindset Health e-Learning system in this hospital. In conclusion the researcher exhibited the recommendations of this research in the form of strategies conceptualised in a framework. === M.Ed., North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2010