Student nurse satisfaction levels with their courses: Part II – effects of academic variables

The degree of student satisfaction with their educational experiences is an important dimension in the assessment of institutional effectiveness. All nursing education teams are currently working on ways to improve the quality of their educational provision and increase the satisfaction of their students. This is the second of a two-part article on the factors that influence student satisfaction with their courses. Part I examined how the four demographic features of gender, disability, ethnicity and age influenced student satisfaction and their performance on nursing modules. This paper complements Part I by examining the effects of three educational factors (academic level of the module, mode of study, and the qualification aim) on the accomplishment and satisfaction levels of 460 students attending multidisciplinary health care modules at the School of Health Care, Oxford Brookes University, 2000/2001. The study found that in contrast to Level 1 students, Level 3 participants felt the need for modules to stimulate more interest, that module teams be more skilled and knowledgeable and that library resources be more abundant. The findings also suggested that part-time students required significantly more attention than full-time participants in terms of the need for smaller seminar groups that would facilitate contributions and decrease inhibitions among students, and were more concerned with the utility and relevance of their learning in relation to their chosen professions. Diploma participants had the highest satisfaction followed by the BA and then the BSc students. The findings raise issues which are of interest to academic staff and nursing students, and the implications for nurse education and curriculum design are discussed within the context of student nurse satisfaction and quality issues of learning and teaching in higher education.