Integrating Ideological and Political Education Elements Into the Advanced Nursing Practice Course

ABSTRACT Objective To explore the effectiveness of integrating ideological and political education elements into advanced nursing practice courses for nursing master's students. Methods This is a nonequivalent posttest design study. The study selected 24 nursing Master's students who took the advanced nursing practice course between 2023 and 2024 as the experimental group, and nursing Master's students who completed the advanced nursing practice course between 2021 and 2022 as the control group. The experimental group (25 students) received classroom instruction integrated with ideological and political elements, while the control group received traditional classroom teaching. The study compares the academic performance, learning stress and fatigue, critical thinking ability and satisfaction of the two groups. Results The experimental group's academic performance (84.71 ± 2.76) was significantly higher than that of the control group (75.44 ± 3.84), ( p < 0.001). Compared to the control group, students in the experimental group received higher learning feedback and exhibited lower levels of excessive engagement, although there was no significant difference in overall effort between the two groups ( p = 0.61). The experimental group's critical thinking ability (151.83 ± 4.48) was significantly higher than that of the control group (128.88 ± 5.24), ( p < 0.01). Students in the experimental group also reported higher satisfaction. Conclusion Integrating ideological and political education elements into the advanced nursing practice course can enhance students' academic performance, learning efficiency, critical thinking ability, and course satisfaction.