Evaluating the effectiveness of an online faculty development programme for nurse educators about remote teaching during COVID-19

OBJECTIVE: Engaging learners during the COVID-19 pandemic is a significant challenge for educators. The pandemic has propelled the popularity of online learning, with Google Classroom being widely used by educational institutions as a remote learning platform. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of an online faculty development programme on nurse educators' perceived competency in creating and delivering e-content using Google Classroom and other freely available digital tools. METHODS: A pre-experimental design was adopted for the research. A six-module online faculty development course was conducted for 24 nurse educators of an affiliated nursing college, over a period of eight days. A debriefing session was held on ninth day after the completion of the course. A 10-item rating scale was used to assess the participants' perceptions of their competency in using Google Classroom and other digital tools for online teaching before and after the online faculty development course. RESULTS: Out of 24 trained participants, 18 completed the post-evaluation rating scale, giving a response rate of 75%. In the post-evaluation phase, a high level of competency was perceived by 83.3% of participants for using Google Classroom and 66.7% for creating video lectures and using an online grade book. A statistically significant difference (p < 0.001) between pre- and post-course evaluations was observed. CONCLUSION: This study shows that the online faculty development programme enhanced the perceived skills of faculty members in effectively delivering online teaching using various digital tools during the pandemic.