Team-Based Learning in a Community Health Nursing Course: Improving Academic Outcomes.

BACKGROUND: Population health concepts, such as upstream thinking, present challenging ideas to undergraduate nursing students grounded in an acute care orientation. The purpose of this study was to describe how team-based learning (TBL) influenced academic outcomes in a community health nursing course.

METHOD: A descriptive correlational design examined the relationship among student scores on individual readiness assurance tests (iRATs), team readiness assurance tests (tRATs), and the final examination. The sample included 221 nursing students who had completed the course.

RESULTS: A large positive correlation was found between iRAT and final examination scores. For all students, the mean tRAT score was higher than the mean iRAT score. A moderate positive correlation existed between tRAT and final examination scores.

CONCLUSION: The study contributes to understanding the effects of TBL pedagogy on student academic outcomes in nursing education. TBL is a valuable teaching method in a course requiring the application of challenging concepts. [J Nurs Educ. 2017;56(7):425-429.].