The Effectiveness of Concept Map instruction in mobile phones on Creativity of Nursing Students in Intensive Care Courses

Background: technologybased concept mapping is a subset of elearning and is considered a selective strategy for providing information and educational skills. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of concept mapping instruction in mobile phones on the creativity of nursing students. Methods: This study was a pretest posttest randomized controlled trial. Sixty eight senior nursing students were selected using the whole enumeration. They were divided equally into the experimental (n=34) and control groups (n=34) by stratified block randomization. In the experimental group, concept mapping instruction was carried out using mobile phones; however, the routine method was used in the control group. Students’ creativity was measured by Abedi’s Creativity Test before and after the intervention. Data were analyzed with SPSS software using the paired ttest and multivariate analysis of covariance. Results: There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of demographic characteristics (p 0.999).The mean total creativity score and the mean scores on all the subscales decreased in both groups in comparison to the preintervention scores. The changes in the scores of elaboration (p= 0.046), originality (p= 0.022), and total creativity (p= 0.036) showed a significant difference between the control and experimental groups, but there was not any significant difference between two groups in term of fluency (p = 0.08) and flexibility (p=0.143). Conclusion: Although the easy access of learners to mobile phones made the use of this approach seem useful in students’ education, further studies are recommended with higher sample sizes and other creativity assessment instruments.