The effect of an e-learning module on health sciences students' venipuncture skill development.

Introduction: Venipuncture is a psychomotor skill required in many healthcare professions. E-learning could be used to overcome current barriers in face-to-face learning in healthcare education such as insufficient classroom space or qualified instructors. We sought to evaluate the effectiveness of an e-learning module on students' performance when used in addition to in-class training.

Methods: Overall, 224 health sciences students were approached to participate in this pilot study. Recruited students were divided into control and study groups. The control group received only in-class training, whereas the study group had access to the e-learning module in addition to in-class learning. Both groups were evaluated on their self-confidence using a Likert scale, academic competence using a multiple-choice questionnaire, and psychomotor competence from video skill recordings using an in-house rubric. Nonparametric, independent sample Mann-Whitney tests were performed to evaluate differences between groups.

Results: Overall 114 students provided written informed consent; 84 students (control: = 50, study: = 34) participated in at least one component of the study. Significantly higher ( = 0.017) academic competence scores were observed in the study group. Significantly higher confidence levels were also observed postintervention for both the control ( = 0.0025) and study ( = 0.0011) groups; however, no significant differences were found between the study and control groups before ( = 0.441) or after ( = 0.883) intervention. Finally, no significant differences ( = 0.428) were observed for psychomotor skills between the study arms.

Conclusion: Our results suggest that there is potential for e-learning to increase the academic competence of students when used in conjunction with traditional learning; however, further research is needed to determine its efficacy on psychomotor skills.