The impact of mnemonic devices on attainment and recall in basic knowledge acquisition in nursing education

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of letter/phonetic method on attainment and recall of basic knowledge about healthcare system, health teams and the roles of nurses taught in “Introduction to Nursing” lesson in freshman students studying at nursing department at the faculty of health sciences. Therefore, the present study was carried out with 76 freshman students in two classes with almost the same knowledgelevel in the Department of Nursing at the Faculty of Health Sciences at Kafkas University in 2012-2013 academic year. Before the instructional period, one of these classes (39) was assigned as the treatment group, while the other (37) was assigned as the control group. Both groups were given a test on Health care system, health teams and the role of nurses. The participants were given the same test after the study as well. Three weeks after the instructional period, the attainment test was given as the recall test. The test scores were analyzed using ttest. The analysis of the t-test scores indicated that there was a significant difference between the attainment scores of the groups. Similarly, when the recall test scores of the groups were compared, it was found there was a significant difference between the groups in favor of the treatment group in terms of recalling what was learnt. The findings of the study indicated that letter/phonetic method implemented in the study was highly effective in boosting learners’ success and recall.

Nurses ,

Health Care System ,

Health Teams ,

the Role of Nurses ,

Mnemonic Devices ,

Letter/PhoneticMethod ,

Attainment ,

Recall ,