Chinese nursing postgraduates' views on implementing outcome-oriented academic English course: a descriptive study

Background: According to previous studies on professional English course teaching, the evaluation of course teaching was positive, but the vast majorities focus on medical English literature reading, professional English vocabulary, and professional English translation. As an alternative, the course design based on academic learning needs under the outcome-oriented education/model emphasizes the improvement of students' comprehensive ability in oral expression, literature reading, writing, and academic communication. Objectives: The objective of this study was to analyze nursing postgraduates' opinions on learning the outcome-oriented academic English course. Methods: This is a cross-sectional descriptive study. A total of 150 first-year nursing postgraduates enrolled in the "Academic Professional English for Nursing Postgraduates" course. After completing the course learning, students scanned QR codes generated by the online questionnaire and completed it anonymously within 48 h. Results: The students who participated in this course strongly believed that it "helped them strengthen their English speakability" (4.8 points), "made them more confident to participate in international academic conferences and exchanges in the future" (4.8 points), and "helped them apply English more in the nursing professional field in the future" (4.7 points). Conclusions: The implementation of outcome-oriented course teaching helps students to understand the research of foreign scholars and effectively express their own research content with English as a tool. It motivates them to continuously use English for professional and academic communication.