This study aimed to verify the effects of a new instructional method to structure\nknowledge. The research hypothesis was that â??Structured knowledge\nimproves assessment skills of studentsâ?. Fifty-five second-year undergraduate\nstudents volunteered to participate in this study. They were randomized into\neither a group that received instructional intervention (n = 19; intervention)\nor a group that did not (n = 36; non-intervention). A survey and instructional\nintervention comprised pre-tests, individual instructional intervention, participant\nself-studies and post-tests. The students attempted one pre- and one\npost-test task, each comprising concept map drawing and assessment of actual\npatients with diabetes. Participants who received educational intervention\ndescribed concept maps regarding the pathophysiology and nursing of\ndiseases, and we taught a learning strategy to understand relationships between\nconcepts and the assumption of clinical assessment. The results of the\nconcept map drawing task showed that post-test structural knowledge scores\nwere significantly higher for the intervention, than the non-intervention\ngroup (p < 0.001). Post-test scores of the intervention group for assessment\nskills regarding â??nursing problems and factorsâ? were significantly better than\npre-test scores (p < 0.001), and significantly higher than those for the\nnon-intervention group (p < 0.01). The educational intervention in this study\nseemed to augment the ability to identify nursing problems, although we did\nnot teach assessment strategies. The intervention seemed to confer structured\nknowledge with explicit conditions for applicability. Structured knowledge\nwith explicit conditions and learning how to use knowledge to assess patients\nbefore a clinical practicum seemed to augment assessment skills.
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