Effectiveness of Mind Mapping Vs Lecture Method on Learning Regarding Physiological Changes during Pregnancy among Nursing Students

Background of the study: Mind mapping is a newer method of teaching, in which a main idea will be in the center from which sub branches arise. Lecture method is a traditional method of teaching. The purpose of the study was to find out the effective method of teaching to improve the learning ability of nursing students .Physiological changes during pregnancy was the topic selected to assess the learning because it is an important and vast topic in obstetrics and gynecology. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of mind mapping and lecture method on learning regarding physiological changes during pregnancy.

Method: A quantitative approach with true experimental pre-test post test design was used for the study. The subjects consisted of 60 nursing students selected using simple random sampling technique (lottery method). The data was collected by administering a structured questionnaire. The researcher gave teaching to Group 1 using mind map and Group 2 using lecture method. A post test was conducted on the seventh day.

Results:. Mean pre and post test learning scores for Group -1 were 23.75± 2.62 and 31.2± 3.37 respectively , whereas in Group-2 it was 22.13± 2.33 and 29.73± 3.98 respectively. The calculated paired 't' values of group-1 and group-2 were 7.306 and 10.15 respectively (t29=1.70, P< 0.05). The comparison of effectiveness between mind mapping and lecture method were done using independent 't' test. The computed 't' value 1.129 (t58=1.65,p>0.05) was not significant, which indicated that both the teaching methods, mind mapping and lecture method were equally effective to improve the learning scores of nursing students. The association between pre-test learning scores and selected demographic variables of subjects were done using chi-square test at 0.05 level of significance. There was no significant association found between the age, gender and total marks (%) scored in the previous university exam.

Conclusion: The study findings showed that both mind mapping and lecture method were equally effective in improving the learning scores on physiological changes during pregnancy among third year B.Sc nursing students. No significant association was found between the pre-test learning scores and the selected demographic variables.