Nursing studies self-efficacy and motivation in a case-based learning program.

Abstract

In 1998 the Institutes of Nursing in the United Arab Emirates adopted a new approach of Case-Based learning in their three year nursing program. This categorical change created a need to examine the development of nursing students' self-efficacy and motivation under this new curriculum. The aims of this study were to investigate whether the students in the final year of the program will evidence higher levels of motivation and self-efficacy compared to those in the second and first year of the program, and to demonstrate that the higher the level of self-efficacy, the more internal, unstable and controllable the attributions for success and/or failure. This study was based on Bandura's theory of self-efficacy. A randomly selected cross-sectional survey involving nursing students in the three-year diploma nursing program of Abu-Dhabi and AI Ain Institutes was studied (N=178). The participants of this study involved a total of 86 (48.3%) enrolled in year one diploma, 51 (28.7%) enrolled in year two and 41 (23.0%) in year three diploma. On the whole the participants' levels of motivation and self-efficacy were high, but both ANOVA and Kruskall Wallis tests did not support any level increase by year of education as was expected. However, the Spearman's rho (r) test yielded low but positive and significant correlations between the levels of self-efficacy and students attribution for success and/or failure.