Teaching Strategies in Nursing Education for Young Adults

Who are Young
Adulthood (20-40 Years of Age)

    The
transition from adolescence to becoming a young adult has been completed
emerging adulthood. Early adulthood is composed of the cohort currently between
20 and 34 years of age, who belong to the millennial generation, as well as the
cohort currently aged 35 to 40, who are known as Generation X. Both generations
exhibit their own characteristic traits and present different challenges to the
nurse educator (Fishman, 2016). 

    These two age cohorts encompass approximately
140 million Americans and are more ethnically diverse than ever (Crandell et
al., 2012; Fry, 2016).Young
adulthood is a time for establishing long term, intimate relationships with
other people, choosing a lifestyle and adjusting to it, deciding on an
occupation, and managing a home and family. 

    These decisions lead to changes in
the lives of young adults that can be a potential source of stress for them. It
is a time when intimacy and courtship are pursued and spousal and/or parental
roles are developed (Santrock, 2017).

Development Aspects: Physical, Cognitive, and Psychosocial 

    During
this period, physical abilities for most young adults are at their peak, and
the body is at its optimal functioning capacity (Crandell et al,2012). The
cognitive capacity of young adults is fully developed, but with maturation,
they continue to accumulate new knowledge and skills from an expanding
reservoir of formal and informal experiences. Young adults continue in the
formal operations stage of cognitive development (Piaget, 1951, 1952, 1976). 

    These experiences add to their perceptions, allow them to generalize to new
situations, and improve their abilities to critically analyze, solve problems,
and make decisions about their personal, occupational, and social roles. Their
interests for learning are oriented toward those experiences that are relevant
for immediate application to problems and tasks in their daily lives. Young
adults are motivated to learn about the possible implications of various
lifestyle choices (Crandell et al,2012).

    Erikson
(1963) describes the young adult’s stage of psychosocial development as the
period of intimacy versus isolation. During this time, individuals work to
establish trusting, satisfying, and permanent relationships with others. They strive to make commitments to others in their personal,
occupational, and social lives. As part of this effort, they seek to maintain
the independence and self sufficiency they worked to obtain in adolescence.

    Young
adults face many challenges as they take steps to control their lives. Many of
the events they experience are happy and growth promoting from an emotional and
social perspective, but they can also prove disappointing and psychologically
draining. The new experiences and multiple decisions young adults must make
regarding choices for a career, marriage, parenthood, and higher education can
be quite stressful. Young adults realize that the avenues they pursue will
affect their lives for years to come (Santrock, 2017).

Young Adults and Teaching
Strategies In Nursing Education

    Based
on the paucity of literature on health teaching of individuals who belong
specifically to this age cohort, young adulthood is the life span period that
has received the least attention by nurse educators. At this developmental
stage, prior to the emergence of the chronic dis cases that characterize the
middle age and older years, young adults are generally very healthy and tend to
have limited exposure to health professionals. 

    Their contact with the
health care system is usually for preemployment, college, or press port
physicals; for a minor episodic complaint; or for pregnancy and contraceptive
care (Orshan, 2008). At the same time, young adulthood is a crucial period
for the establishment of behaviors that help individuals to lead healthy lives,
both physically and emotionally. Many of the choices young adults make, if not
positive ones, will be difficult to modify later. 

    As Havighurst (1976) points
out, this stage is full of “teachable moment” opportunities and healthcare
providers must take advantage of every opportunity to promote healthy behaviors
with this population (Hinkle, 2014).Health
promotion is the most neglected aspect of healthcare teaching at this stage of
life. Yet, many of the health issues related to risk factors and stress
management are important to deal with to help young adults establish positive
health practices for preventing problems with illness in the future. 

    The major
factors that need to be addressed in this age group are healthy eating habits,
regular exercise, and avoiding drug abuse. Such behaviors will reduce the
incidence of high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, obesity, smoking, and
overuse of alcohol and drugs (Santrock, 2017).The
nurse as educator must find a way to reach and communicate with this audience
about health promotion and disease prevention measures. 

    Readiness to learn does
not always require the nurse educator to wait for it to develop. Rather, such
readiness can be actively fostered through experiences the nurse creates.
Knowledge of the individual’s lifestyle can provide cues to concentrate on when
determining specific aspects of education for the young adult. For example, if
the individual is planning marriage, then establishing healthy relationships,
family planning, contraception, and parenthood are potential topics to address
during teaching ( Orshan, 2008). 

    The motivation for adults to learn comes in
response to internal drives, such as need for self-esteem, a better quality of
life, or job satisfaction, and in response to external motivators, such as job
promotion, more money, or more time to pursue outside activities (Crandell et
al,2012; Miller & Stoeckel,2016).When
young adults are faced with acute or chronic illnesses or disabilities, many of
which may significantly alter their lifestyles, they are stimulated to learn to
maintain their independence and return to normal life patterns. 

    It is likely
they will view an illness or disability as a serious setback to achieving their
immediate or future life goals. Because adults typically desire active participation in the educational process,
whenever possible it is important for the nurse as educator to allow them the
opportunity for mutual collaboration in health education decision making. 

    They
should be encouraged, as Knowles (1990) suggested, to select what to learn
(objectives), how they want material to be presented (teaching methods and
tools), and which indicators will be used to determine the achievement of
learning goals (evaluation ). Also, it must be remembered that adults bring to
the teaching-learning situation a variety of experiences that can serve as the
foundation on which to build new learning. consequently. 

    It is important to
draw on their personal experiences to make learning relevant, useful, and
motivating. Young adults tend to be reluctant to expend the resources of time,
money, and energy to learn new information, skills, and attitudes if they do
not see the content of instruction as relevant to their current lives or
anticipated problems (Collins, 2004; Knowles et al., 2015).

    Teaching
strategies must be directed at encouraging young adults to seek information
that expands their knowledge base, helps them control their lives, and bolsters
their self-esteem. Whether they are well or ill, young adults need to know
about the opportunities available to learning. Making them aware of health
issues and learning opportunities can occur in a variety of settings, such as
physicians’ offices, student health services, health fairs, community and
outpatient clinics, or hospitals. 

    In all cases, these educational opportunities
must be convenient and accessible to them in terms of their lifestyle with
respect to work and family responsibilities. Relevant, applicable, and
practical information is what adults desire and value they want to know “what’s
in it for me,” according to Collins (2004).

    Because
they tend to be very self directed in their approach to learning, young adults
do well with written patient education materials and audiovisual tools,
including computer assisted instruction, that allow them to self-pace their
learning independently. Group discussion is an attractive method for teaching
and learning because it provides young adults with the opportunity to interact
with others of similar age and in similar situations, such as in parenting
groups, prenatal classes, exercise classes, or mar ital adjustment sessions. 

    Although assessment prior to teaching helps to determine the level at which to
begin teaching, no matter what the content, the enduring axiom is to make
learning easy and relevant. To facilitate learning, present concepts logically
from simple to complex and establish conceptual relationships through specific
applications of information (Collins, 2004; Musinski, 1999).