DETERMINANTS
OF LEARNING
BY: TATYANA LAUREN P. AJERO
CLINICAL INSTRUCTOR
OBJECTIVES
1. State the nurse educator’s role in the learning process.
2. Identify the three components of what is known as determinants of learning.
3. Describe the steps involved in the assessment of learning needs.
4. Explain methods that can be used to assess learner needs.
5. Discuss the factors that need to be assessed in each of the four types of readiness to learn.
6. Describe what is meant by learning styles.
7. Discuss ways to assess the learning styles.
Introduction
There are certain challenges that make the nurse educator’s role particularly challenging in
meeting the information needs of various groups of learners.
1. Staffing patterns, part time deployment, and various job functions.
2. Ethnic and racial composition of nursing students.
3. Students are entering school of nursing at older ages with diverse life experiences such as work
demands and raising families.
4. Population demographics.
Three Determinants of Learning
1. The needs of the Learner.
2. The state of readiness of the
learner.
3. The preferred learning styles for
processing information
The Educator’s Role in Learning
One of the most essential interventions that a nurse performs.
The nurse must identify the information learners need as well as consider the readiness to learn.
Learning can be enhanced by the educator serving as facilitator in helping the learners become
aware of what needs to be known.
Note: Provision of information to the learner does not ensure learning, it is more of an opportunity
to learn if the educator assesses the learning determinants.
Assessment permits the nurse educator to facilitate to process of learning.
Crucial Role of Educators
1. Assessing problem or deficits.
2. Providing important information and presenting it in unique and appropriate ways.
3. Identifying progress being made.
4. Giving feedback and follow-up
5. Reinforcing learning in the acquisition of new knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
6. Evaluating learners’ abilities.
Assessment of the Learner
First and most important step in instructional design.
But this is the step that is mostly neglected.
Usually, the nurse would proceed to teaching before addressing the determinants of learning.
Individualizing teaching based on prior assessment improves patient outcomes.
Even the nursing process would start with assessment.
This step validates the need for learning and the approaches to be used in designing learning
experiences.
Good assessments ensure that optimal learning will occur with the least amount of stress and
anxiety for the learner.
Assessing Learning Needs
LEARNING NEEDS- are defined as gaps in knowledge that exist between a desired level of
performance and the actual level of performance.
•Learning needs must be identified first so that instructional plan can be designed to address deficits
in the cognitive, affective or psychomotor domains.
•Not every individual perceives a need for education. It is up to the educator to assist them in
identifying, clarifying, and prioritizing their needs.
•Most learners can master a subject with higher degree of success if given sufficient time and
appropriate concern.
Steps in the Assessment of Learning Needs
1.Identify the Learner
2. Choose the right setting.
3. Collect data about the learner.
4. Collect data from the learner.
5. Involve members of the health
care team.
6. Prioritize needs.
7. Determine the availability of the
educational resources.
8. Assess the demands of the
organization
9. Take management issues into
account.
Modes to Assess Learning Needs
Informal
Observations Patient Charts
conversations
Structured
Tests
interviews
Self
Focus Groups Administered
Questionnaires
Readiness to Learn
This can be defined as the next step to determine the learner’s readiness to receive information.
Readiness to learn occurs when the learner is receptive, willing and able to participate in the
learning process.
It is the responsibility of the educator to discover through assessment when patients or staff or
learners are ready to learn, what they need to learn, and adapt to content that would fit each
other.
If the learner is not ready, no matter how important the information is, it will not be absorbed.
Timing is every important. It is a point which teaching should take place.
A learner who is not receptive to information at one time may be more receptive to information in
another time.
4 types of Readiness to Learn
• Measures of ability Gender
Physical Readiness • Complexity of Task
• Environmental Effects
Health Status
•
•Anxiety Level Frame of mind
Emotional Readiness •Support System
•Motivation
Developmental Stage
Risk taking Behavior
Experiential •Level of aspiration
•Cultural Background
Past Coping Mechanisms
Locus of Control
Readiness •Orientation
Knowledge • Present knowledge base Cognitive ability
Readiness • Learning disabilities Learning Styles
Physical Readiness
✓Measures of ability- ability to perform a task requires fine and or gross movements.
✓Complexity of Task – variations will affect the extent to which behavioral changes in
cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains can be mastered by the learner.
✓Environmental Effects- it will help keep the learner’s attention and stimulate
interest.
✓Health status- healthy learners have the available energy for learning.
✓Gender- Research indicates that women are generally more receptive to medical
care and take fewer risks to their health than men.
Emotional Readiness
Anxiety Level- a factor that influences the ability to perform cognitive, affective, and psychomotor levels.
Support System- the availability and strength of the support system may influence emotional readiness
and may be affected by anxiety
Motivation- Knowing the motivational level of the learner assists the educator in determining when
someone is ready to learn.
Risk Taking Behavior- The educator may assist learners to develop strategies that help reduce the risk
of their choices.
Frame of Mind- involves concern about here and now versus the future.
Developmental Stage- Each task is associated with human development and produces a peak time for
readiness to learn.
Experiential Readiness
Level of Aspiration- The extent to which someone is driven to achieve is related to the type of short
and long term goals established.
Past Coping Mechanisms- the coping mechanism that someone has must be explored and
understood so that we would know how the learner dealt with previous problems.
Cultural Background- Knowledge on other cultures and being sensitive to behavioral differences
avoid teaching in opposition to cultural beliefs.
Locus of Control- Knowing the learner’s previous life patterns needs to be determined.
Orientation- The tendency to adhere to a parochial or cosmopolitan point of view.
Knowledge Readiness
Present Knowledge Base- How someone knows about a particular subject or topic or how
proficient one is in performing a task.
Cognitive Ability- The extent to which information can be processed is indicative of the learner’s
capability.
Learning and Reading disability- Individuals with low literacy and learning skills are easily
discouraged unless the needs are recognized.
Learning styles- to best assess how someone learns and likes to learn will help the teaching learn
the best teaching style.
Six Learning Style Principles
1. Both the style by which the educator prefers to teach and the
style by which the learner prefers to learn can be identified.
2. Educators need to guard against relying on teaching methods
and tools that match their own preferred learning styles.
3. Educators are most helpful when they assist learners in
identifying and learning throughtheir own styles and preferences.
Six Learning Style Principles
4. Learners should have the opportunity to learn through
their preferred style.
5. Learners should be encouraged to diversify their styles
and preferences
6. Educators can develop specific learning activities that
reinforce each modality or style.
