Aim:

This presentation will report on the student responses to an interdisciplinary initiative to develop the numeracy and mathematical skills of undergraduate nursing students. Additionally we will explore some of our reflections on the preparation, delivery and evaluation of this initiative.

Research questions:

Does a constructivist, conceptual approach to teaching maths to nurses improve nurse’s numeracy skills?

What was the student nurses perception of this approach to teaching maths for drug calculations?

Background:

Nurses spend much of their clinical time undertaking medication dosage calculation. Safe, error free administration of medications is a fundamental requirement of ensuring optimal patient outcomes. However, errors regularly occur, the cause of errors in medication administration is multifaceted. One aspect that has been highlighted in the literature leading to medication errors relates to errors in dosage calculation. Up to 30% of medication errors can be attributed to incorrect dosage administration. Numerous studies have identified deficiencies in the medication calculation and numeracy skills of nurses. This problem is not isolated to nurses or one country alone with deficiencies in numeracy skills of healthcare professionals identified as a problem in Europe, Australia and North America. Internationally there has been consistent concern in the healthcare literature over many years relating to the lack of mathematical / numeracy skills of healthcare professionals. Despite many attempts at improving numercay skills of nurses there continues to be significant problems in this area that potentially contribute to poor outcomes for patients.

Typically, the method for teaching drug calculation to nurses has been by learning formulas and repetitive practice. However, this approach is very procedural rather than process oriented and may work in the short term but does not foster long term learning or understanding. Additionally, the teaching is conducted by nurse teachers who do not specialize in teaching numeracy and maths.

This Australian initiative used student teachers to teach the student nurses maths skills using visual, spacial and linguistic approaches to teaching maths. 

Method: To answer the research questions the research was conducted in 2 stages. Stage 1: Quantitative date was obtained via a quasi-experiment conducted in 2017 to examine the effects of a constructivist approach to teaching numeracy maths skills to nursing students. In stage 1 a pre-test and two post-tests were given to the students. The first post-test immediately following the completion of the teaching period and a second post-test three months after completion of the teaching period. Stage 2: Students were interviewed to determine their perceptions of the teaching approach and if they thought it was beneficial in improving their numeracy skills.

Outcomes: Analysis of the results showed significant improvement in numeracy skills which was maintain 3 months following the completion of the program. Feedback from students was varied with some indicating very positive experience and improved numeracy skills. Some students found the teaching approach confronting, suggesting that they thought the approach used was for children rather than adults. We are currently conducting further analysis of the data which we intend to present at the conference.

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