Access and participation factors in online distance nursing education programme during a major pandemic: The student-nurse in view

With the global health crisis, COVID-19 brought University education under siege. The situation became even worse for the specialised and practical subjects or programmes that strive on the need for 'physical' or 'real' observations and or manipulations of experiences. This chapter identifies and explains the factors that affected access and participation of the undergraduate student-nurses who are also practising professional nurses in the rollout of a fully online Distance Nursing Education programme. This study, which was ontologically and epistemologically situated within the critical realist philosophy, took place at the University of Ghana and underpinned by the Mezirow's (1978) Transformational Learning Theory. Twelve participants were involved in individual telephonic semi-structured interview. The study found technology and professional practice to be the common factors that affected both access and participation of the student-nurses on the Distance Education (DE) programme. Factors found to affect access to online Distance Nursing Education programme are institution, faculty, peers, family support and resources. The participants revealed that their work shift schedules, practical lecture sessions, family demands, teaching learning and examinations timetabling are factors that affected it. This chapter strongly recommends a revisit to the curriculum design for online Distance Nursing Education programme. Again, the need for substantial investments into technological infrastructure and the capacity building of staff and students in innovative ways of using technology for nursing education in DE are highly recommended.