AN EXPLORATION OF MULTIMEDIA USE IN AN ONLINE RN-BSN PROGRAM Gina Anderson Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Education in the Instructional Systems Technology Department of the School of Education Indiana University May 2015 An Exploration of Multimedia Use in an Online RN-BSN Program Accepted by the School of Education Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education. Dr. Thomas Brush, Ph.D. Dr. Curtis J. Bonk, Ph.D. Doctoral Committee Dr. Joshua Danish, Ph.D. Date of Oral Exam: May 4, 2015 ii Copyright © 2015 Gina Lynn Anderson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED iii To Scott, Jeanne, Jeff, and Megan (and in loving memory of Fred) iv Acknowledgements My journey to get to this point has not been the most traditional of paths. Those that are close to me know what I have been through to reach my goal of finishing what I started over a decade ago in the fall of 2004. It would not have happened without the support of the many people who I would like to recognize. First, to my major advisor, Dr. Thomas Brush, for his unconditional support throughout my journey. Dr. Brush was a strong advocate and mentor for me which is essential when you do this away from campus. He provided his critical comments which has made me a better writer and scholar. I will always have the deepest gratitude for him signing up to work with me a second time through this process! Your presence allowed me to enjoy studying from afar. Thank you for never giving up on me! I will always be grateful. Second, to another member of my dissertation committee Dr. Curtis Bonk, who once reminded me that we had met several times in life; the first time we met you showed me the passion you had for online learning, the second time we met it reminded me why I wanted to be a leader in the field, the third time we met you renewed my interest to finish what I started (and we both wished we would not have been in Ohio during a snow storm!), and the fourth time we met you provided the encouragement I needed (and the card is still in my purse today). May we continue to meet many more times in our lives! Third, to another member of my dissertation committee Dr. Joshua Danish, who provided me with an example of online teaching excellence and gave me critical feedback that moved my thinking and dissertation forward. Thank for your attention and involvement in this process! Next, I would like to thank everyone at Indiana University in the School of Education who had direct or indirect involvement in getting this doctoral program approved. I know how time and labor intensive it is to get a new program through at a university. Know that the v investment was well worth it. I would like to also thank Dr. Daniel Hickey. I am appreciative that you helped me navigate through all the online paperwork for my minor. Professor Boling, your words of giving up and not finishing always stayed in the back of my mind and made me determine to come back and finish what I started. Also, thank you to Dr. Ray Haynes for being supportive and celebrating my work. You are an inspiring role model for me. I would also like to thank the university administrators for allowing me the opportunity to study the RN-BSN online program, the staff who sent emails on my behalf to the students and sent IRB materials back and forth between states, and to the instructors and students who showed interest and volunteered to participate. Without all of your involvement, this study would not have happened. Thanks to my colleague, Mrs. Kate Tredway whose love of nursing education started us on this amazing inquiry. You are a dear colleague with whom I hold the upmost respect. I look forward to continuing to explore ways with you to improve online nursing education. Finally, to my brother and sister-in-law, Jeff and Megan for their never ending understanding and support. To my mom for her love and encouragement and for always supporting and believing in me no matter what decisions I made. To my late grandfather, whose entrepreneurial spirit guides my drive. And to Scott, my husband, colleague, and best friend, for the endless hours of love and support you provided to me. For this, I was able to stay focused toward my goal. I would not be here today without you. most traditional of paths. Those that are close to me know what I have been through to reach my goal of finishing what I started over vi Gina Anderson An Exploration of Multimedia Use in an Online RN-BSN Program The purpose of this qualitative action research study was to determine what multimedia non-traditional RN-BSN nursing students’ used in the online classroom and in what ways they used it within the context of one problem-based and one project-based online course. Specifically, there was an interest in determining what aspects of multimedia were most useful to the nursing students’ learning by examining the differences across these instructional designs from a more sociocultural perspective. As part of this examination, the researcher compared views of authenticity as articulated by the designer, original subject matter expert (SME), instructors, and students. The goal was to use this data to formulate specific guidelines to inform the types of multimedia for future production. The participants were current online RN-BSN nursing students within a large Midwestern university and instructors who had taught at least one of the courses under study. To achieve the goal of this study, multiple data were gathered from three data types: (1) artifacts, (2) observational data, and (3) inquiry data. There were two parts to the study: artifact collection and interviews. A total of 460 student artifacts were collected. Artifacts were analyzed using thematic analysis (Braun & Clark, 2006; Shank, 2002) until saturation was reached from one problem- based learning course and one project-based learning course with enrollments of 16 and 20 respectively. In addition, data were collected from six instructors and five students. Results of this study revealed that instructors’ perspectives differed not only with regard to student uses of multimedia across the two different pedagogical designs, but also with regard to the benefits and constraints to student’s learning. Results suggested that students used vii multimedia in varied ways within the different designs to support their learning. Students and instructors reported the most useful attribute of multimedia was how it helped establish relevance to the real world. This study showed that the way students, instructors, and the designer defined real world or authenticity may be influenced by external factors that need to be taken into consideration. This has implications for the decades of research published on multimedia guidelines. Multimedia guidelines for the program under study are provided. viii Table of Contents List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... xi  List of Figures ................................................................................................................... xii   CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................. 1  Introduction ..........................................................................................................1  Problem Statement ...............................................................................................3  Description of Study ............................................................................................6  Significance of Study ...........................................................................................8  Definition of Terms..............................................................................................9  Organization of Remaining Chapters ...................................................................11   CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................... 12  Introduction ..........................................................................................................12  Overview of Multimedia Learning ......................................................................12  Multimedia Guidelines .........................................................................................14  Limitations of Guidelines for this Study ..............................................................18  Lack of Authenticity ............................................................................................19  Sociocultural Perspectives on Learning ...............................................................22  Overview of the Culture of Nursing Education ...................................................33  Multimedia Use in Problem-based and Project-Based Online Nursing Education ............................................................39  Summary of Knowledge Gaps .............................................................................43  Summary of Chapter ............................................................................................45   CHAPTER THREE: METHODS ..................................................................................... 46  Research Design ...................................................................................................46  History of the Program.........................................................................................48  Description of the Program, Courses, and Activities ...........................................52  The Participants ...................................................................................................62  Data Sources ........................................................................................................63  Procedures ............................................................................................................69  Data Analysis .......................................................................................................76  Establishing Trustworthiness in Action Research ...............................................92  Summary of Chapter ............................................................................................98   CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS ......................................................................................... 99  Research Question 1 ............................................................................................104  Summary ..............................................................................................................108  Research Question 1a ...........................................................................................117  Summary ..............................................................................................................118  Research Question 1b ..........................................................................................127  Summary ..............................................................................................................130  ix Research Question 2 ............................................................................................131  Summary ..............................................................................................................136  Research Question 2a ...........................................................................................137 Summary ..............................................................................................................144  Research Question 2b ..........................................................................................146  Summary ..............................................................................................................156 CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION .............................................. 159  Examination of Findings ......................................................................................159  Research Questions 1, 1a, 1b. ..............................................................................159  Research Questions 2, 2a, 2b. ..............................................................................166  Practical Implications...........................................................................................172  Building connections through genuine multimedia. ...............................173 Creating multimedia of actual nurses for metacognition .......................175 Setting clear expectations for multimedia. .............................................176 Theoretical Implications ......................................................................................177  Limitation of Study ..............................................................................................179  Suggestions for Further Research ........................................................................181  Conclusion ...........................................................................................................182  REFERENCES ...................................................................................................184   Appendix-A NURS 242 Week 1 Individual Review and Reflect Questions .......219 Appendix-B NURS 242 Week 7 Individual Review and Reflect Questions .......220 Appendix-C NURS 385 Activity Directions .......................................................221  Appendix-D IRB Approved Recruitment emails for students and instructors ....224  Appendix-E IRB Approved Consent Forms for students and instructors ............226  Appendix-F IRB Approved Verbal Script for students and instructors ...............232  Appendix-G Interview Protocol for students and instructors ..............................234  Appendix-H NURS 242 Multimedia Alignment ................................................238  Appendix-I NURS 385 Multimedia Alignment ...................................................241  x