Evaluation of a Web-based Mentor Functional System for

Employment Support Training of Nurses who Have Not been

Employed

Yumiko Nakamura

, Yukie Majima

2,3

, Yasuko Maekawa

, Kaori Fukayama

and Kazumi Hoshi

School of Nursing, Osaka Prefecture University, 3-7-30 Habikino,Habikino Osaka, Japan

Graduate School of Engineering,

College of Sustainable System Sciences

Osaka Prefecture University,1-1 Gakuentyo, Sakai Osaka, Japan

Keywords: Nurse, Employment Support Training Program, Mentor Functional System, e-Learning.

Abstract: We developed a mentor functional system combined with an e-learning training program to support nurses

who have not been employed. Subsequently, to evaluate it, we conducted a survey using a constitutive

questionnaire and a group interview of 14 monitors who had used it for a month. In the mentor functional

system, the questions they asked were related exclusively to nursing techniques and new information,

showing that their concern for reemployment had been reduced by taking counseling from the mentor. From

these observations, it follows that the mentor functional system is effective.

1 INTRODUCTION

In Japan, acceleration of demographic aging has

raised the national nursing shortage to prominence

as a social issue. Therefore, it is necessary to support

the reemployment of people with nursing

qualifications who have not been employed

(potential nurses). The potential nurses have

concerns related to their lack of nursing ability

(Hosoda, 2010). To relieve their concerns, we

developed a training program by e-learning in our

preceding study (Majima, 2010).

Because the potential nurses have a wide age

range and because their levels of information

communication technology (ICT) experiences vary

among different individuals, it is necessary to

support ex-nurses who want to be reemployed so

that they can effectively address their learning.

Consequently, for this research, we developed a

mentor functional system to support their learning,

which is useful with the training program developed

in the previous research. We surveyed the users to

evaluate the function, convenience, and ease of the

system and how effectively it can support them.

2 RESEARCH PURPOSE

Our purposes are to develop a web-based mentor

system for employment support training by e-

learning. Then we conduct an empirical examination

of it with research subjects, and gain additional

information to increase the system functions and

convenience of the mentor functional system.

3 RESEARCH METHOD

3.1 Research Participants

The people participating in the research as

volunteers were 14 whose consent for research

cooperation was obtained, of 19 who had attended

the training workshop for reemployment held at O

prefecture’s nurse center.

3.2 Research Duration

The research was conducted about one month from

November to December on 2011.

3.3 Learning System

3.3.1 Learning Content Presentation System

The developed e-learning system contains example

materials mounted on an e-learning system for

learning nursing practice examples (Nakamura,

327

Nakamura Y., Majima Y., Maekawa Y., Fukayama . and Hoshi K..

Evaluation of a Web-based Mentor Functional System for Employment Support Training of Nurses who Have Not been Employed.

DOI: 10.5220/0004195403270330

In Proceedings of the International Conference on Health Informatics (HEALTHINF-2013), pages 327-330

ISBN: 978-989-8565-37-2

 2013 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

2010) as its basic learning content. The examples

span a wide array of nursing fields such as basic,

adult, maternal and pediatric, gerontological,

psychiatric, community health, home care, and

occupational care nursing (Majima, 2006).

This system enables nursing personnel to learn

specialized knowledge, nursing skills, and past

national exam questions in the context of the

development of nursing processes (Figure1).

Figure 1: Overview of the e-learning system for studying

nursing practice.

3.3.2 Configuration Management Function

for Training Programs

This is the function by which, when a potential nurse

(learner) inputs the prescribed requirements, the

system automatically produces and presents a

training program that is suitable for the

person(Figure 2, Figure 3).

The prescribed requirements include the

following: the year of separation from service;

experienced medical departments; the medical

department at the time of leaving service; a desired

facility and a medical department the learner wishes

to return; a desired area for practical training; and a

desired learning pattern.

3.3.3 Mentor Assistance Function

This function assists the service by which a learning

assistant, designated as the “mentor”, answers

questions or consultations from a person of learner

on the Web (Figure 4).

1) A mentor inputs a proposed answer and keywords

to a question from a person of learner and presses

the search database button.

2) The system extracts educational materials

matched to the keywords set by the mentor from the

database and presents them.

3) The mentor selects appropriate ones among the

presented educational materials and sends an answer

to the learner.

4) The learner receives the answer and is able to

view the educational materials to be learned.

Figure 2: Configuration and flow for the training system.

Figure 3: e-Learning system for rehiring of unemployed

nurses. http://enurse.nursing.osakfu-u.ac.jp/osusume/

Mentor assistance function

Potential

nurse

(Learner)

Question data

Inputting a

question

Learning material

selection

Answer data

Unanswered

Question list

Questions/ answers

Learning material DB

Mentor

(Learning

assistance)

Inputting an answer by a mentor/

Informing after learning material

selection

Presentation

processing

Inputting an

answer

Viewing answers

List of learning

materials

Material

learning

Educational

material DB

Answer

announcing

mail

Material learning system



Presentation processing is a process to

extract educational materials matched to key

words set by a mentor from the educational

material database and present them.

 After selecting the most appropriate one

from presented educational materials, a

mentor sends an answer to a potential nurse.

Figure 4: The flow of mentor assistance function.

3.4 Research Methods and Contents

We asked participants to use the training program

developed for self-learning for one month during

Configuration management function for training programs

Potential nursing

personnel

(Learner)

 The system automatically configures a training program from the educational material DB using

individual attributes (year of leaving service, medical department at the time of leaving service, desired

medical department to return, desired learning pattern) as the key.

 Using automatic configuration, a training program is acquired together with information in cooperation

with the material learning system (URLs and names of educational materials to be learned).

 Potential nurses can add (or delete) materials to a training program along with automatic configuration.

User master

Automatic

Configuration

process

Training program

Material

learning

Educational

material DB

Material learning system

Adding attributes

(1) Medical department

(2) Year

(3) Kind of skill

(4) Keywords

Additional

registration

HEALTHINF2013-InternationalConferenceonHealthInformatics

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which the training workshop to support

reemployment was conducted.

After the subjects used the program, we surveyed

them using a constitutive questionnaire and a group

interview. The contents of the questionnaire include

the evaluation of educational materials, the mode of

offering them, and their improvement of both the

training program and mentor functional system, and

how the users’ concerns might be changed using

them.

Regarding methods of analysis, basic

information was analyzed using descriptive

statistics. Qualitative data were processed using

qualitative descriptive analysis.

3.5 Ethical Considerations

The ethical affairs committee for research of the

school to which all of our study group members

belong approved the study project we conducted.

4 RESULTS

4.1 Basic Attributes

The 13 subjects were all women: 3 were in their 30s,

and 10 were in their 40s. Regarding marriage status,

3 were unmarried, 10 were married, and one was

divorced or bereaved. The average service year as a

nurse was 6.3±5.2 years. The average

unemployment duration was 12.9±7.1 years. The

retirement reasons (multiple answers allowed) were

marriage (answered by 6), job relations (by 4),

health problems (by 4), and pregnancy and delivery

(by 3).

4.2 Evaluation of the Training

Program Material

The gross utility hours of the program were mode

values of 21–24 hr. Regarding the access frequency,

five subjects used it 2–3 times, four used it 4–5

times, and four used it 10–11 times. Regarding

comprehensive evaluation of the program, three

subjects answered “very good,” six answered

“good,” and four answered “not very good.”

As for evaluation of the educational material

contents of the program, the following answers were

extracted: “rich in content,” “easily comprehended,”

“The procedure can be confirmed by images,” and

“The nurses’ approach shown in the example is

realistic and good,” and “Knowledge cards and

problem learning are informative.” As for learning

effects, “The concerns for reemployment can be

reduced.”

4.3 Offering Ways for Improvement in

the Training Program

In terms of the system, it was judged as “easily

accessible”, but “It is difficult to find educational

materials,” “It takes much time to find it,” and “I’m

not familiar with using a PC, so I prefer to use

books.”

4.4 Evaluation of the Mentor System

The users of the mentor functional system were

seven (50%). The questions asked by them were 13,

which were related to confirmation of the contents

of imaging techniques, newly provided information,

and system problems (Table 1).

As for the comprehensive evaluation of the

mentor functional system, five of seven answered

“good,” and the other two answered “not very

good.” About their asking the mentor questions, they

reported: “I can ask about what would make me feel

ashamed if I now asked about it in someone’s face”;

“Thinking that I can ask the mentor any question

makes me feel confident.” About the answers from

the mentor, they said “They are respectful, easily

understandable and friendly”; “Because the mentor

showed the training program (educational material

contents), it was good.” About the time when they

received the answer from the mentor, the following

were extracted: “I wanted to receive an answer

quickly,” and “It was not easy access because I did

not know when I would be answered.”

4.5 Offering a Method and

Improvement in the Mentor System

Regarding the window, “The space is small and

unreadable.” As for improvements, the following

were extracted: “To make the button prominent” and

“to take example questions.” As a manner of

utilization, the following suggestion was offered:

“The questions might be put displayed for others.”

4.6 Change of Users’ Concerns about

Reemployment using the Mentor

System

As for concerns related to reemployment, ten users

(71.4%) evaluated it, saying “Concerns can be

reduced by the training program.” As concerns, the

EvaluationofaWeb-basedMentorFunctionalSystemforEmploymentSupportTrainingofNurseswhoHaveNotbeen

Employed

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following were extracted: “I wonder whether I can

keep up with the changes at medical sites”; “I have

forgotten nursing techniques”; “How to

communicate with others”; “How to respond to new

techniques that nurses are conducting these days”;

“How to use an electric chart and ordering system”;

“I have anxiety about causing some medical

accident”; “My own physical strength”; and “Job

relations.

Table 1: Status of use of the mentor functional system and

number of days taken for answering.

Classification Contents of questions

Number of

days *1

New

information

Nursing record

(electric chart)

Typical drugs to

manage pain

0 day

2 days

Changed roles Urethral catheterization

for a male patient

4 days

Confirmation

of nursing

techniques by

images

Attachment of the

AED electrode pad

Massage after

intramuscular injection

Cuff pressure check in

endotracheal

suctioning

Oxygen saturation in

endotracheal

suctioning

Acidulated water

infusion after tubal

feeding

Blood drawing

procedure and

sterilization

5 days

1 day

4 days

5 days

3 days

Answered

questions

Nursing ethics: right of

self-determination

Prevention of patient

misidentification

(temporarily saved)

2 days

System-related Opinion to the system

Wrong display of

registrants

0 day

3 days

*1：Number of days taken for the user to receive an

answer from the mentor

5 DISCUSSION

Two effects were revealed: the mentor functional

system can support learning by the web, and it can

reduce users’ concerns related to reemployment.

Especially, the respectful answers and

recommendation of educational materials from the

mentor received high evaluation marks. From the

questions asked of the mentor, it follows that the

mentors should necessarily be clinical nurses who

can provide the latest medical and nursing

information, nurses who have produced the

educational materials (so that they can answer the

questions about the nursing technical images offered

in the system), and system engineers who can

respond to questions about the system itself.

The future tasks of the mentor functional system

are to address some shortcomings. It cannot give

timely responses to individual questions, and

learning support is done exclusively between the

user and the mentor. The users cannot mutually

communicate. Therefore, we must develop a future

mentor system using the latest ICT.

6 CONCLUSIONS

This e-learning system was developed to identify

potential nursing personnel whose whereabouts

might be unknown and to support their training for

re-employment using the internet. In future studies,

we plan to administer a post-learning questionnaire

to users and to perform a comprehensive evaluation

of the system, along with promotion of the system.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific

Research (B) at Ministry of Education, Culture,

Sports, Science and Technology in Japan

(23390493 ).

REFERENCES

Hosoda Y., Hoshi K., et. al., 2010. Factors Related to the

Clinical Competence and the Training Needs for

Reemployment of Inactive Nurses: Toward the

Development of an Effective Training Program for

Reemployment Support, Proceeding of the 26

Annual Conference of JSET, pp.441-442

Majima Y., Nakamura Y., et. al., 2010 : Designing an E-

learning System to Support Re-employment of

Potential Nurses, Proceedings of the IADIS

International Conference, WWW/INTERNET 2010,

pp.402-405

Nakamura Y., Majima Y., et. al., 2010, Comparison of

Training Needs for Rehiring of Unemployed Nurses

and Nursing Supervisors, 11th International ICNE

Conference, Abstract Book, p57

Majima Y., So Y., Seta K., 2006. Framework for Problem-

Solving Based Learning in Nursing Domain -An

Experimental Study-, Learning by Effective

Utilization of Technologies: Facilitating Intercultural

Understanding, pp.625-628

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