The Effect of Blogging on Learning and its Persistence in Undergraduate Nursing Students

Blogging is a method of sharing and reflecting on experiences of students in the World Wide Web with potentially global learning. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of Blogging on learning and persistence in nursing students taking heart disease course.
This is a semi-experimental study in which 28 fourth semester undergraduate nursing students participated. They were divided randomly into two control and experiment groups and heart disease nursing course was taught to both groups. In intervention group, in addition to the usual method of teaching, students created an educational blog butthe control group was taught by the traditional method. The students’ learning was examined before, and immediately after the intervention, and three months after it via a researcher-made test. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by content validity and its reliability was evaluated by Cronbach’s alpha (r=0.76).
Mean of pre-test and post-tests 1 and 2 scores of learning were 6.26±1.65, 16.01±2.48, 14.66± 1.77 in control group and 6.75±1.55, 16.29±2.17, 16.18±1.88in experiment group respectively. The mean scores of learning in the both groups increased significantly after the education. The results showed that no significant difference between the two groups in pre-test and post-test 1 scores, but did show a significant difference between the two groups in post-test 2 scores (p=0.03).
This study showed that immediate post training intervention learning was more effective in both groups, but in intervention group performed much better.