Learning Nursing During the Covid-19 Pandemic; Teacher-Support is Exceptionally Important

Abstract

Background: The Covid-19 pandemic affects both students and teachers with its sudden change in study design, causing students studying remotely at home with much uncertainty, and minor relatedness. By only use of digital tools, teacher-support has possibly worsened, affecting students' motivation, study-effort and learning.

Aim: To investigate the associations between teacher-support, students' intrinsic motivation, study-effort and learning during the pandemic.

Methods: In a cross-sectional design, quantitative data were collected from 329 nursing students at a large university in Norway. Six hypotheses of the associations between teacher-support, intrinsic motivation, study-effort and learning were tested by means of structural equation modelling. To gain more understanding, qualitative data were included.

Results: Teacher-support showed significant direct effects on students' learning and intrinsic motivation, as well as significant indirect effects on learning mediated by intrinsic motivation and study-effort.

Conclusion: Teacher-support is important to students' learning, when teaching goes digitally in the context of a pandemic. To facilitate students' learning teachers should provide students with structure and study demands, accompanied by a follow-up. To meet students' demands and needs teachers need support by their employer to be fully prepared technologically.