Development And Evaluation Of An APP Learning Software Of Aged Care

Objectives1.To establish an aged care knowledge system in order to provide a scientific basis for the designing of APP learning software;2.To develop an APP learning software with a stable operation environment and diverse nursing care knowledge,which would provide an APP learning software prototype for future APP learning software development in this field;3.To evaluate learning effects of the APP software.Methods1.The first part is to establish an aged care knowledge system.The aged care knowledge system was established on interview and Delphi method and the weight was determined with analytic hierarchy process(AHP).2.The second part is about the design and development of the APP learning software of aged care.Eclipse 3.0 was used as the software development platform,Spring MVC+Mybatis+Bootstrap framework was used for backend management,and the light-weight JSON format was employed for data interaction between mobile terminal and backend.After the APP software ran for one month,sixteen experts including eleven aged care experts and five educational technology experts were selected with convenient sampling method.Experts were invited to evaluate the content,function,interface design and technical performance of the APP software.After that,forty nursing aides for aged were selected to evaluate the use effect of the APP software;3.The third part is about evaluating the learning effect of the aged care APP software.The assessment indexes included knowledge,attitude and practice of nursing aides for aged(KAP),and aged care theoretical examination scores.Meanwhile,the evaluation of learning effect of experimental group by the APP learning software was discussed.Results1.An aged care knowledge system was built that includes 4 first-level indicators,14second-level indicators and 52 third-level indicators.The weight of the indicators was also determined.2.APP learning software of aged care was developed based on the aged care knowl edge system,column settings of other APP software and suggestions given by aged care experts and nursing aides for aged.Six level-1 columns were set up(namely pension information,learning field,interaction forum,outstanding trainees,health regimen and individuals center),eaching containing a corresponding level-2 and level-3 with abundant learning resources.Aged care knowledge was illustrated with graphic,video,animation and other forms of interactive presentation and was available to visitors by scanning the quick response(QR)code.3.The development effects and use effects of the APP learning software were evaluated and were appraised positively.The evaluation aspects of development effect by aged care experts and educational technological experts were included learning content,learning function,interface design and technical performance.The evaluation aspects of use effects by nursing asides for aged were included interface design,technical performance,learning content,learning function.4.Evaluate results of the APP software on learning outcomes of nursing aides for aged: There was no significant difference of baseline data between experimental group and control group.Theoretical examination scores,the total score of KAP,the score of knowledge and practice in the experimental group was significantly higher than that in the control group.The results of paired t-test showed that there were statistically significant differences in the theoretical examination scores,the total scores of KAP,knowledge and practice of the nursing aides for aged in the experimental group.But there was no statistically significant difference in the attitude dimension score.There was no statistically significant difference in the control group.The experimental group had a higher approval for the APP software learning method.ConclusionThis study showed that the aged care knowledge system provides a reference for the standardization of aged care training.The APP learning software was designed and developed based on the aged care knowledge system.The APP learning software provides aged care knowledge at anytime and anywhere and improves the theoretical knowledge and nursing skills for aged effectively.The nursing aides for aged has a high approval for the APP software learning method.The development of this software has established a“nursing-network” platform for the aged care education,it is of great significance for thestable development of the pension industry and the improvement of the quality of care for aged in their later years.The software development path of this research can further provide reference for other field APP learning software.