An evaluation of nursers' workplace clinical skills development facilitated by the use of an intranet based learning resource

This evaluation investigated the affordances of an intranet-based, learning tool which is being developed for paediatric nurses. The tool has been designed to be used in the work place to complement and support traditional approaches to teaching and learning. The focus of the evaluation is how nurses use five learning objects within this resource: two short films and three interactive animations, to learn a specific nursing skill: tracheostomy suction. Four nurses participated in the study, two with no experience and two with experience in tracheostomy care. The findings of this pilot evaluation demonstrate that the use of media rich learning resources by nurses in clinical settings can contribute learning new skills, particularly when these newly learned concepts and knowledge were reinforced with actual supervised clinical practice. The use of technology facilitated learning resources was enthusiastically embraced, boosted confidence and prompted discussions with the clinical teacher.