Barriers and enablers in information communication technology adoption by students in a private nursing education institution

Abstract

The background and problem statement centre the role of information communication technology (ICT) integrated globally with health, to provide secure electronic health information to the right person at the right time and place, and to optimise healthcare delivery, research, education and knowledge. Although the World Health Organisation (WHO) positioned ICT within healthcare, international research shows that healthcare workers do not adopt ICT to a sufficient degree. ICT is as much applicable to student nurses as other training and business situations. Technology adoption research in healthcare is lacking. It is essential for students to have ICT access to assist with learning, and it should be incorporated into nursing and midwifery curricula. Although technology is available at a private nursing education institution, the researcher recognised barriers to the adoption of ICT by undergraduate student nurses. The literature review peruse what is known about ICT adoption in health systems internationally and nationally, to gain a deeper understanding of ICT adoption focussed on nurses. The aim of this research is to enhance ICT adoption by undergraduate student nurses at a private nursing education institution where students have to complete eLearning programmes supportive to their curriculum. The objectives are to explore and describe the barriers to and enablers for ICT adoption as part of eLearning by undergraduate student nurses at a private nursing education institution; and to formulate recommendations for nurse educators to enhance student nurses’ adoption of ICT. The study followed a qualitative, explorative interpretive, contextual design (Grove et al., 2013:66). An all-inclusive, purposive sampling method was applied to select participants from a small and well-defined population (Grove et al., 2013:351) of pupil enrolled nurses and bridging students (N=17). A mediator recruited participants and explained informed consent and the research topic to participants. Data was collected by means of semistructured focus groups with 4-6 participants per group, and the writing of narratives after the focus groups. From the focus groups three main themes and seven sub-themes were formulated. Firstly, that student nurses hold positive, negative and contrasting perceptions regarding ICT; technology infiltrates the caring presence of nurses; and incremental steps to use technology within a technology-enhanced and blended-learning environment. From the narratives it concluded that although student nurses are aware of challenges access and connectivity, they perceive themselves to have the potential to become independent ICT users. The enablers for ICT adoption outweighed the barriers. Recommendations are formulated for nurse educators based on technology-enhanced learning within a blended-learning environment that is learner-centred and contextual.