Evaluation of the Effect of Educational Smartphone App for Nursing Students

The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of educational smartphone app with the effect of learning using conventional paper material. We developed an educational app for nursing students to learn how to read blood pressure and how to take a pulse. Evaluated was the effect of the app-based education by measuring the short term memory (right after the education), the long term memory (a week later) and the satisfaction. 25 college nursing students participated for the experiment group using the app-based education and 25 for the control group using paper-based education. We applied for statistical analysis Fisher's exact test and Independent t-test. The satisfaction of the app user's appeared significantly higher than that of the paper material user's (t=2.322, p=0.024). The short term memory score was 0.23 points higher in the experimental group (6.46 points) than in the control group (6.23 points), which was not statistically significant (t =0.422, p =0.675). Similar result came for the long term memory (t=1.006, p=0.320). After adjusting for the effect of a college grade using ANCOVA, the effect on memory was significantly higher in the experiment group. There might be differences in learning ability between the experimental and the control groups.