E-Learning in nursing education in Rwanda: benefits and challenges. An exploration of participants' perspectives

E-learning is a commonplace in nursing and healthcare professional education, and generally the importance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and the Internet in tertiary education is recognized. The entry visa for e-learning is a computer and an Internet connection [1]. The aim of this paper is to analyse the utilisation of e-learning in selected nursing campus in Rwanda. A convergence parallel mixed method was use as recommended by Creswell[2]. For quantitative survey, a total of 275 participants responded to the questionnaires, and for qualitative approach, a total number of 40 participants were purposively selected. Quantitative data was analysed using SPSS 23, and for qualitative data, thematic analysis was used. The finding from this study indicated that participants were ready and eager to embrace e-learning in nursing education due to a number of benefits they reported such e-learning being a student centred approach, being a blended learning method, and fast track for the production of nursing workforce taking into consideration the history of Rwanda. However it was found that a number of challenges were hindering a proper implementation such as: resource constraints, insufficient teachers and students training in ICT, language barrier, lack of policies regarding e-learning, resistance to change, issues related to Moodle accessibility.