How do only eight faculty members effectively prepare more than 100 nursing students for clinical practice? It’s a challenge facing many nursing ed programs, including the Division of Nursing at the University of West Alabama.
“We’re so busy and stretched,” explained Dara Murray, UWA Assistant Professor of Nursing. She said nursing instructors averaged 24–36 hours per semester in the lab validating up to four skills per student.
To maximize faculty time and flexibility, UWA implemented GoReact video assessment software. With simple tools for remote observation and multimodal feedback, Murray said nursing faculty now spend significantly less time validating skills because they can evaluate and grade student videos anytime from anywhere.
Limited Faculty
Lost Lab Time
No Physical Skills Validations
Flexibility & Time Savings
Increased Efficiency
Improved Nurse Readiness
“We’ve had consistent feedback from our clinical faculty and simulations coordinators that students are better prepared.”
UWA nursing faculty initiated a study to find out how much time they saved using GoReact. They compared hours spent validating the same skill face-to-face and with video assessment. Whereas Group A spent 254 minutes evaluating students in the lab, Group B spent only 176 minutes using GoReact. The study identified two possible reasons for the time savings:
Elimination of non-productive time. For Group A, students were scheduled to arrive at the lab in 15–20 minute increments. If they arrived late or finished early, faculty were left waiting. In contrast, faculty in Group B had the flexibility to complete evaluations at a time, place, and pace that was convenient for them—with no downtime between students.
Faster viewing with playback controls. Group B faculty also had the option to play videos in GoReact at 1.3x, 1.5x, 1.7x, and 2x the recorded speed. So if they watched videos at the maximum speed, they could view a 5-minute video in half the time.
UWA nursing faculty used time saved with GoReact to add physical skills validations to their curriculum. “In the past we didn’t have the time in the labs to do that,” Murray said. Now, they can offer more hands-on training to improve nurse readiness. According to Murray, “We’ve had consistent feedback from our clinical faculty and simulations coordinators that students are better prepared.”
