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Paediatrics
Research
Improving developmental and educational support for children born preterm: evaluation of an e-learning resource for education professionals
  1. Samantha Johnson1,
  2. Deborah Bamber1,
  3. Vasiliki Bountziouka1,
  4. Sarah Clayton1,
  5. Lucy Cragg2,
  6. Camilla Gilmore3,
  7. Rose Griffiths4,
  8. Neil Marlow5,
  9. Victoria Simms6,
  10. Heather J Wharrad7
  1. 1 Health Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
  2. 2 Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Notts, UK
  3. 3 Centre for Mathematics Education, University of Loughborough, Loughborough, Leics, UK
  4. 4 School of Education, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
  5. 5 Institute for Womens Health, University College London, London, UK
  6. 6 School of Psychology, University of Ulster, Coleraine, Londonderry, UK
  7. 7 Health Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Notts, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Samantha Johnson; sjj19{at}le.ac.uk

Abstract

Objectives Children born preterm are at higher risk for special educational needs and poor academic attainment compared with term-born peers, yet education professionals receive limited training and have poor knowledge of preterm birth. We have developed an interactive e-learning resource and evaluated its efficacy in improving teachers’ knowledge of preterm birth and their confidence in supporting the learning of children born preterm.

Setting Eight primary, infant or junior schools in England.

Participants 61 teachers of children aged 4–11 years, of which 55 (90%) were female.

Intervention Interactive e-learning resource designed to improve education professionals’ knowledge of long-term outcomes following preterm birth and strategies that can be used to support children’s learning (www.pretermbirth.info). In a repeated measures design, participants were given up to 30 days access to the e-learning resource, before and after which they completed the Preterm Birth Knowledge Scale (PB-KS; scores 0–33; higher scores indicate greater knowledge) to assess knowledge of outcomes of prematurity. Four Likert scale items were used to assess confidence in supporting children’s learning and 10 items were used to evaluate the utility of the resource. PB-KS scores and responses on confidence item were compared pre-resource and post-resource use.

Results PB-KS scores significantly increased after accessing the e-learning resource (median (95% CI): pre-resource 13 (11 to 14); post-resource 29 (28 to 30)), equating to a 2.6 SD increase in PB-KS scores. Teachers’ confidence in supporting children born preterm was also significantly improved after using the resource. The utility of the resource was evaluated positively by participants with 97% reporting that they would recommend its use to others.

Conclusions The e-learning resource substantially improved teachers’ knowledge of preterm birth and their confidence in supporting preterm children in the classroom. Use of this resource may represent a key advance in improving educational outcomes for children born preterm.

  • preterm birth
  • special educational needs
  • development

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-029720

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors SJJ was the principal investigator, contributed to study design, data collection and management, drafted the first version of the manuscript, revised it for important intellectual content and approved the final version for submission. DB contributed to study design and data collection, revised the manuscript for important intellectual content and approved the final version for submission. VB analysed the study data, revised the manuscript for important intellectual content and approved the final version for submission. SC, LC, CG, RG, NM, VS and HJW contributed to study design, revised the manuscript for important intellectual content and approved the final version for submission.

    • Funding This study was funded by a project grant from Action Medical Research (Grant Ref: GN2311). CG is funded by a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Ethics approval The study was approved by the University of Leicester Research Ethics Committee (Ref: 16607).

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement Requests for access to deidentified study data relating to primary outcome measures should be emailed to the corresponding author using the information provided above. Please note, four participants did not provide consent for data sharing. As such only a reduced set of data for 57 participants can be made available. Study results in this subgroup are commensurate with the results from the total sample.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.