ABSTRACT

Nursing education, including the individual nurse educator, has a responsibility to society and to students for providing quality education, for maintaining the highest academic standards, for the proficient use of teaching strategies and for ensuring adequate support to learners. This study aimed at investigating factors influencing teaching and learning at College of nursing and midwifery sciences, sokoto. The objectives included the following possible factors that may have contributed towards the academic performances of students:

 Approaches to teaching and learning;

 Motivation and learning;

 Language barrier to learning;

A non-experimental, descriptive research design was applied with a quantitative approach. The target population (N = 356) consisted of nursing students following the course leading to registration as a professional nurse. Stratified sampling was used to select the sample of participants (n = 70). A structured questionnaire, consisting of predominantly closed questions, was used for the collection of data. The outcomes from this study showed that academic support classes, when offered, were always attended by (n = 42/60%) and most times by (n = 24/34.2%). The majority of the participants were able to cope with the workload most of the time (n = 43/61.4%), whilst (n = 6/8.6%) and (n = 2/2.9%) of the participants indicated coping seldom and never, respectively. The result of the study showed that most of the students spent the more time on their studies per day (3 and >3 hours). Few students (n = 5/7.1%) and (n = 13/18.6%) spent less time on their studies daily. Recommendations made by participants included the following:

• English as a subject / module during the first year was proposed.

• The promotion of the proficiency in English, through interaction between English speaking

learners and students with English as second language, should be encouraged.

• Regular updates of the contents of the curriculum.

• The importance of identifying ‘at risk’ students and pro-actively introducing a mentorship

program.