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Numeracy in Nursing is More Than Just Learning Math

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In her latest blog post, Hazel Cowls, Lecturer in Adult Nursing on the University of Plymouth, examines the difficulty of numeracy in nursing education from a teacher and student perspective.

Safe medication administration is a key nursing activity, accounting for roughly 40% of registered nurses’ time (1) and in line with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (2), registered nurses must find a way to display competence in medication calculation skills to offer secure patient care. Teaching medication calculation and counting is a compulsory a part of the pre-registration nursing curriculum, as all pre-registration nursing students are required to realize a 100% pass rate in pre-registration medication calculations (3).

Prospective students must display a certain level of numeracy skills before enrolling in a nursing degree program. However, some pre-registration nursing students report feeling anxious and apprehensive with regards to practicing medication calculations and preparing for the medication calculation exam. As a nursing lecturer, I understand that students who report a insecurity in medication calculations may not perform well within the exam. I desired to explore the experiences of pre-registration nursing students in learning medication calculations and, after obtaining ethical approval, conducted a small qualitative study. During my student interviews, I used to be not surprised to listen to that a contributing factor to their anxiety in mathematics was the necessity to realize 100% in Year 3 of their degree. Two of the scholars interviewed reported a insecurity and believed that this was attributable to their age, as they’d not recently attended further education. One student reported that her dislike of mathematics had delayed her enrollment in a nursing degree program. These results support previous research on math anxiety amongst nursing students, for instance, one study found that nursing students reported math anxiety, but this was based on a math test (4). While one other study published in 2019 found that gender and age may result in negative stereotypes, leading mature students to imagine they’re weaker at math (5). These negative stereotypes may explain why students report math anxiety or insecurity in math despite evidence of their mathematical abilities.

Understanding math anxiety in nursing students will help Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) provide a learning environment that’s supportive and positive for college kids. There are many aspects that may result in “math anxiety” as mentioned above, including prior learning, insecurity in math skills, and concerns in regards to the math test (4 and 6).

The aim of teaching drug counting and calculation is to extend the arrogance and skills of pre-registration nursing students in order that they’ll work safely as registered nurses. This will help to grasp how pre-registration nursing students learn drug counting and calculation to offer an authentic learning experience that will help to alleviate any concerns that nursing students can have. For example, some students learn through simulated practical sessions, clinical practice, a taught mathematics session, or through access to online resources and workbooks, and even a mix of various learning resources. Interestingly, the scholars interviewed by the creator reported quite a lot of teaching methods that supported their learning, and all reported that simulated and clinical practice increased their confidence and competence.

It is very important to recognise that a technique of teaching may not work for everybody, as all of us learn in another way and that we want to offer quite a lot of synchronous and asynchronous resources to support student learning. This blended approach to teaching medication calculations has been shown to be effective and can prepare students for clinical practice (5, 6, 7). The responsibility for teaching pre-registration nursing students medication calculations and counting lies with each registered nurses working in clinical practice and academia, providing nursing students with the chance to develop their knowledge and skills.

  1. Meechan, R., Valler-Jones, T. and Jones, H. (2011) Do OSCE medication examinations improve the flexibility to take medication? British Nursing Journal 20, No. 13 https://doi.org/10.12968/bjon.2011.20.13.728
  2. Nurses and Midwives Council (2018a) Qualification standards for registered nurses. Available online: https://www.nmc.org.uk/globalassets/sitedocuments/education-standards/future-nurse-proficiencies.pdf
  3. Nurses and Midwives Council (2018b) Understanding professionalism: Standards for education and training. Part 3: Standards for Nursing and Midwifery Council pre-registration nursing programmes. Available online: https://www.nmc.org.uk/globalassets/sitedocuments/education
  4. Røykenes, K. (2016) “My mathematics and me”: nursing students’ experiences of learning mathematics to date, Nurse Education in Practice, Volume 16, Issue 1, 2016, Pages 1–7, ISSN 1471-5953, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2015.05.009.
  5. Gregory, L., Villarosa, Arkansas, Ramjam, and others (2019) The influence of mathematics self-efficacy on numeracy performance in first-year nursing students: A quasi-experimental study. Journal of Clinical Nursing 2019;28:3651–3659.
  6. van de Mortel, TF, Whitehair, LP and Irwin, PM (2014) A comprehensive curricular approach to improving the numeracy skills of nursing students. Nursing Education Today 34, 462-467 org/10.1016/j.nedt.2013.04.024
  7. O’Reilly, R., Ramjam, L., Fatayer, M., and others (2020) First-year bachelor’s students’ opinions on the effectiveness of blended learning methods for numeracy in nursing. Nursing Education in Practice 45(2020)

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