Perception of Nursing School Teachers in the Early Stages of Organizational Initiatives Aimed at Implementing Cooperative Learning in Class

Abstract

  The Nursing School Association of a certain prefecture held a workshop aimed at systematically incorporating cooperative learning into classes offered at the prefecture’s nursing schools. In this study, we conducted a mail questionnaire survey for teachers who participated in the first three steps of the six steps covered in the workshop and were in the early stages of incorporating cooperative learning into their own classes to learn about their perception of cooperative learning and its implementation in class, the feeling of success and difficulty experienced through implementation in class, and the support they wanted for continuous implementation.

  The questionnaire showed that all 26 respondents were keen to learn about cooperative learning in the workshop, many of them feeling that they had colleagues with whom they could share the outcomes of cooperative learning, their supervisors are understanding of and cooperative with its implementation in class, and implementation should be continued. The respondents who wanted to but had not yet been able to implement cooperative learning noted that they did not have enough time for class preparation or lacked confidence.

  The above results suggest that in the early stages of implementing cooperative learning in class, supervisors and colleagues should work together to design classes that involve class planning, mutual class visits, and evaluation while ensuring enough time for class preparation. The results also suggest that to ensure continuous implementation, workshops need to be held in line with clear aims and goals, successful experiences of implementation in class need to be shared, and prioritized and systematic support for alleviating the feeling of difficulty needs to be provided.