Development and Effectiveness of a Smartphone Application for Clinical Practice Orientation

This paper presents a smartphone application for the clinical practice education conducted in hospitals, with an aim to evaluate its effectiveness. A nonequivalent control group posttest design was used, which included a total of 100 nursing of school students who conducted their clinical practice. They were divided into one control and one experimental group (50 students each). The control group was directly trained in the clinical practice orientation, and the experimental group was a group who self-learned the clinical practice orientation using a smartphone application. Research data were collected between March 5 and April 27, 2019. They were analyzed with descriptive statistics and independent t-test, using the SPSS Statistics Version 24. The smartphone application customized for the clinical practice education was implemented through the following four phases: analysis, design, development, and evaluation. The developed application was registered in Google Play (for Android apps) and Apple Store, and related information was provided, making it available for download. The study showed that the satisfaction with and self-confidence in learning differed significantly between the groups. However, technology acceptance and knowledge acquired through practice showed no statistically significant difference. The research results serve as basic data for applying smartphone applications as an educational method that can replace traditional modes of education, serving as a significant indicator of the education delivery method diversification.