The Correlation between Difficulty and Satisfaction That Nursing Students Feel in Their Group Work

Abstract

　The purpose of this study was to identify the difficulty that nursing students feel in their group work, and investigate an educational strategy leading to more efficient group work by clarifying the correlation between difficulty and satisfaction of students in terms of teacher's role, nature of assignment and group size. This research was based on a questionnaire conducted on subjects consisting of 452 sophomores at nursing colleges. The result showed that the more difficulty they had in their group work, the less satisfaction they felt. They felt significantly dissatisfied about a) utterance of their opinions, b) talk about their opinions, c) cooperation among members, d) clari fication of the purpose. It was suggested that teachers must keep the above factors in mind when conducting a group work type of instruction. On the other hand, when teachers play an active role intervening in their work positively or monitoring the process of their work regularly, students had less difficulty in interaction among members, and more satisfaction when the work was over. Regarding the theme or topic of the assignment, when it was highly abstract, such as "View of Nursing", they had more difficulty and less satisfaction. The most appropriate group size was 7 -8 members. These results lead to a conclusion that teachers need to play an active role helping stu dents understand the purpose and cooperate with other group members.