LEARNING AND PLAYING WITH CONCEPT MAPPING STRATEGY AMONG NURSING STUDENTS: A QUALITATIVE STUDY

Abstract Teaching strategies are the heart of the academic process, particularly in nursing. Concept mapping is a magic tool to enhance nursing students’ cognitive abilities in studying nursing curriculums. The aim of the current study is to explore the perceived experience of undergraduate students with concept mapping development. The research design was a qualitative approach using focus group discussions (FGDs). Sample: the study was conducted on a purposive sample consisted of 40 nursing students at Alrayan colleges for health science, nursing program, Al Madinah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Results revealed that the nursing students discussed the benefits of concept mapping strategy as simplify content and enhance higher cognitive skills. The barriers were a lack of knowledge, training, time, and difficult construction). Regarding self-confidence during using concept mapping, most of them were motivated with high self-confidence, and had a positive attitude toward such experience. Conclusion: this study highlighted the experience of nursing students in using the concept mapping strategy as a game in their learning a nursing course. The students explained and discussed important themes in terms of concept mapping strategy benefits, barriers, self-confidence, and attitude toward such experience. Recommendations: concept mapping strategy should be used in many courses of nursing education. All teachers and students should be trained in concept mapping. Future studies are needed to explore nursing students’ experiences in utilization of concept mapping in other nursing courses. Implementing concept mapping and other learning strategies and comparing their impact among nursing students.