Abstract
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has faced many challenges, including lockdowns and disruptions to various nursing education programmes. Consequently, Higher education institutions (HEIs) were compelled to quickly transition to online learning to maintain their teaching and learning activities. Given its novelty, the students’ lived experiences of this phenomenon were not fully captured and understood. Nursing students had to cope with the abrupt shift from traditional to internet-based learning platforms. Some reported significant challenges, such as poor internet access, worsened by power blackouts during online learning.
This study aimed to explore and describe nursing students’ lived experiences of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic at a Gauteng HEI and make recommendations to improve the implementation of online learning in nursing education. A qualitative, descriptive, exploratory, and contextual design with a phenomenological approach was used. A nonprobability purposeful sampling method was used to select participants. The targeted population for this study was the BCur (Ed et Admin) degree nursing students who studied through online learning between 2020 and 2021. Unstructured, face-to-face and virtual individual phenomenological interviews were conducted to collect data until saturation was reached. Trustworthiness was also ensured by adhering to the principles of credibility, dependability, transferability, confirmability, and authenticity.
Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenology method was used to analyse the collected data. The analysis revealed a central theme reflecting nursing students’ positive and negative experiences coupled with resilience related to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The following themes and related categories emerged as positive experiences related to online learning: positive emotional experiences; and benefits of online learning. Negative experiences related to online learning included negative emotional experiences; challenges related to online learning; and negative experiences regarding technological resources. Literature was integrated to conceptualise the findings and recommendations were provided. Finally, the researcher described the limitations of this study and provided reflections and a conclusion.