Background A pilot programme of the "Methodology of research" course based on blended-learning was started for Bachelor's and Master's degree Nursing students at the Faculty of Health Science, Warsaw Medical University in the academic year 2011/2012. Students took part in traditional lectures/seminars run by an academic teacher and obligatorily participated in an on-line original course which covered teaching content of "Methodology of research" course divided into several thematic modules. The aim of the study The aim of the study was to analyse the opinions of Nursing students at the Faculty of Health Science, Warsaw Medical University on the application of on-line teaching (blended-learning) in the process of improvement of teaching quality of the "Methodology of research" course. Material and methods As many as 194 Nursing students (185 women and 8 men) of the Faculty of Health Science, Warsaw Medical University took part in the study. 109 full-time Bachelor's degree students and 85 Master's degree students participated in the study. The mean age of the study group of students was 25.83 years of age (SD: 7.00; max. 49; min. 21). An anonymous questionnaire was put on a Moodle e-learning platform in the form of a link to an e-form. The participation in the survey was voluntary and was not connected with passing the "Methodology of research" course. The link to the questionnaire was put at the end of the e-learning course below the teaching-related materials used by the students during the course. Only the students participating in the course had an access to the questionnaire. Quantitative questionnaire studies were supplemented by qualitative studies: non-structured interviews about the on-line "Methodology of research" course were carried out with randomly selected students. The analysis of the results was presented with the use of descriptive statistics (the number of participants, the percentage of participants) and qualitative analysis of opinions presented by the students during the interviews. Results According to 53 students, e-learning courses improved the teaching quality of the "Methodology of research" course. 45 persons perceived the learning content as interesting. In the opinion of 25 persons a student participating in an e-learning course devotes more time to studying compared with traditional classes. The non-structured interviews with students revealed that the most common opinion is that, despite being labour-consuming, e-learning courses included very helpful and useful learning content and definitely made it easier to prepare a diploma project. In the opinion of students, the learning content included in on-line courses should be available during all years of studies, which would increase their usefulness for students. Conclusions 1. The opinions of students concerning the influence of teaching with the use of a blended-learning system on the teaching quality of the "Methodology of research" course were not unequivocal and were closely connected with the method used for collecting the opinions. 2. In the light of the opinions expressed by the students during direct interviews, a pilot teaching programme based on blended-learning with the use of modern Internet technology has improved the teaching quality of the "Methodology of research" course. 3. On-line "Methodology of research" courses should be improved in each consecutive edition with acknowledgement of opinions of students since these opinions often include very valuable remarks for lecturers. These remarks should be used in order to improve courses as well as their quality and usefulness. 4. The pilot study presented here on students' opinions on on-line teaching should be continued on a regular basis in the consecutive years with a larger group of students. Such studies will make it possible for lecturers to check whether the improvement of a course according to students' suggestions indeed increased the quality of a course. 5. Due to the fact that the study demonstrated extremely positive and negative opinions on on-line courses, a method for collecting more objective opinions of students should be developed in the future.
