A development of self-instructional materials (SIMS) to enhance English listening skills for student nurses

Abstract

The study was aimed at developing self-instructional materials for enhancing English listening skills for student nurses. The objectives of the study were as follows: 1) to investigate the needs of English listening skills of student nurses; 2) to develop self-instructional materials on English listening skills for student nurses; 3) to examine the effectiveness of the developed self-instructional materials against the set criteria; and 4) to study the attitude of the student nurses towards the developed self-instructional materials. The study was conducted in two phases including Development of Materials and Materials Implementation/ Evaluation. Thirty samples of student nurses in this study were randomly selected on voluntary basis from School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, Ramathibodi Hospital. The main study was conducted for two months during June – August 2012 of academic year 2012. Instruments used in this study consisted of: 1) a questionnaire to assess the needs of English listening skills of student nurses; 2) a package of self-instructional materials (SIMS) for English listening which was developed by the researcher; 3) an English listening comprehension test; and 4) a materials evaluation form. The statistics employed for data analysis were 1) the t-test which was used to measure the subjects’ English listening skills both before and after using the developed self-instructional materials and 2) the mean and standard deviations which were used for the needs analysis and for the assessment of the students’ opinions of the developed self-instructional materials. The findings revealed that 1) the developed SIMS was effective and relevant with E1/E2 = 84.61/88.40 (higher than the set criteria E1/E2 = 80/80); 2) the students’ listening ability after using the developed SIMS was significantly higher than before using at the 0.05 level of significance; and 3) the student nurses’ level of satisfaction with the developed materials was at a good level. The study clearly demonstrated theoretical processes of developing and evaluating instructional materials of English for Specific Purposes and could be an example research to illustrate the mediation between language teaching and research to promote language instruction for teachers and researchers in the field.