Describing the notion of teaching strategies to accommodate different learning styles in continuous professional education in nursing : an integrative review

Abstract

Learning is essential in all specialties of nursing. Continuous professional development in the form of in-service training became a resource of daily practice as nurses should stay competent throughout their career in an evolving healthcare environment and update their competence to enable improved patient care. Learning is more than gaining knowledge, it is a process, the building of long-lasting cognitive structures and deeper understanding. Teaching is a bidirectional, contributive, interactive, and creative process. Therefore, the teaching approach have a direct impact on learning, but there are contradicting opinions if different learning styles should be accommodated in teaching strategies and if it is only a myth that accommodating different learning styles improves learning. The aim of the study was to explore and describe the value of teaching strategies that accommodate different learning styles in continuous professional development in the nursing environment, by means of an integrative review. The results of this research study contributed to the understanding of the value of different learning styles in continuous professional development in the nursing environment, which in turn might assist with strategies for professional development planning. The main themes that were identified included time, environmental aspects, visual dominant, auditory dominant, reading/writing dominant, kinesthetic dominant and multi-modal. The Whole brain learning and Kolb’s learning styles are represented by the multi-modal learning style.