Article
The development and usability of a multimedia learning environment on personal digital assistants (PDAs) for nursing homes: Dementia 2 Go
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Authors
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Horst Christian Vollmar
- Universität Witten/Herdecke, Witten, Deutschland
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Lauran H. Sandals
- Miller School of Medicine, Miami, USA
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Syeda S. Qadri
- Stein Gerontological Institute of the Miami Jewish Home and Hospital for the Aged, Miami, USA
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David C. Freeman
- Stein Gerontological Institute of the Miami Jewish Home and Hospital for the Aged, Miami, USA
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Marilyn Cheung
- Stein Gerontological Institute of the Miami Jewish Home and Hospital for the Aged, Miami, USA
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Jorge G. Ruiz
- Miller School of Medicine, Miami, USA
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Bernard A. Roos
- Miller School of Medicine, Miami, USA
| Published: | September 10, 2008 |
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Outline
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Purpose
Blended learning has become a popular instructional methodology in medical education. One of the newest additions has been the use of PDAs to deliver medical information to physicians and nurses. We have adapted a variety of materials in creating a module for the mobile PDA learning environment. We then conducted pilot testing to evaluate the usability of this PDA-based module.
Methods
The materials for the PDAs came from different sources. Most of the multimedia content, like animations and video files, were extracted from established training DVDs for professionals in nursing homes. We created a prototype PDA module with nearly 1½ hours of viewable content. The module was evaluated by 7 nurses from a nursing home facility. Each nurse took part in a thirty-minute evaluation, consisting of a self-administered demographic questionnaire followed by a usability questionnaire conducted by an interviewer and an observer. The usability test consisted of two parts: a 28-item task-oriented questionnaire and a 15-item open-ended response questionnaire.
Results
The usability test was conducted with 7 nurses with an average age of 33.2 years (6 women, 1 man). All 7 participants had previously used the Internet but only one had prior experience with a PDA. Overall, we found from the task-oriented questionnaire that the participants had few problems using the PDA. They indicated that the module was clear and concise in regard to both text size and video length. Most of them recognized the main idea from the core content. However, participants who did not recognize the core content also did not realize that the module focused on communication.
Discussion
The need for efficient portable tools for just-in-time learning is growing. Our experiences during the development and testing of the dementia module for nurses demonstrated that PDAs might be a usable solution. Further research is needed to decide if PDAs can be used as a stand-alone approach or if they need to be blended with the content from Web sites, DVDs, or lectures.
