Nursing student control over using a computer simulation program about empowering discourse.

Nurses find empowering discourse as a patient education intervention demanding, so using methods that support the constructive learning of empowering discourse during their education would be helpful. The aim of this descriptive, comparative study was to evaluate student control when using a computer simulation program that facilitates learning about empowering discourse. The study hypothesis was as follows: Students can control the use of an empowering discourse computer simulation program regardless of their sociodemographic background and study orientation. In the study, 69 students completed an educational session culminating in a computer simulation in which the students responded to a simulated patient's statements in their choice of six content areas in three sections by using a multiple-choice method, an open-ended method, or both methods. The students used all the options in the program despite their background and study orientations. The findings provided evidence that nursing students had control over the use of the computer simulation program to manage their own learning and were able to construct personal knowledge about empowering discourse using the computer simulation regardless of their study orientations.