Abstract
Purpose: There is increasing demand to prepare new nursing graduates to practice in today"s complex health care environment. While senior students may be well equipped with basics of nursing theory, their limited clinical experience may hinder their provision of care for patients with high complexity in emergency situations that require sound clinical decisions. As a result, there is a growing need for alternative experiential learning opportunities to allow students transition successfully from classroom education to clinical practice. Interactive virtual simulation software (vSim by Lippincott) provides students with a safe, but challenging environment, to help them apply content they learn in class and practice various clinical situations. Adoption of interactive virtual simulations in nursing education provides a vision to emerge senior nursing students into higher complexity care while preparing them to provide effective quality patient care in the clinical settings. The use of virtual simulation in nursing education and in health professions education in general is expanding with time (Aebersold, Tschannen, & Bathish, 2012). One of the main advantages of virtual simulation is that it provides students with convenient experience that can be repeated by those students as many times as necessary in order to achieve mastery in performing one or another task. In addition, virtual simulation promotes active learning and critical thinking while providing students with immediate feedback on their performance. The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of senior first degree nursing students enrolled into first degree accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) program on the advantages and challenges of practicing multiple interactive virtual simulations (vSim by Lippincott).
Methods:
Participants: A convenience sample (N=11) for this study consisted of the senior nursing students enrolled into 32 months ABSN program and taking the Comprehensive Nursing Review course. None of the participants have use virtual simulation cases as a learning strategy prior to this study.
Setting: This study was conducted at a private university in the northeastern part of the United States, in virtual simulation software was used for the first time as a teaching strategy to enhance face-to-face method for senior students.
Study Design: A survey method was used to explore the perceptions of the senior first degree accelerated BSN students about their feeling regarding virtual simulation scenarios, influence on clinical skills, decision making and problem solving abilities, most and least helpful features of the virtual simulation experience.
Results: Most students had positive responses regarding the use of virtual simulation software (vSim) as a supplement in the face-to-face course. The survey results show that majority of the students accepted a virtual simulation as an equivalent substitute for the real life clinical experience which allows to practice clinical skills to be used in a life threatening situations such as cardiopulmonary arrest. Absolutely all study participants indicated that virtual simulation contributes to development of the assessment skills, critical thinking abilities and prioritization of nursing interventions. The typical quotes included:
- Helped to practice decision making
- Helped to analyze priority steps in providing patient care
- Advanced my knowledge of prioritization and assessment
- Helped to practice what needed to keep the patient safe
While evaluating the effectiveness of the virtual simulation environment, students liked that they may practice skills multiple times without harming the real patient and receive a detailed immediate feedback on each interventions:
- Was very helpful for real life
- Feel like being in the situation with patient
- The experience close to real practice
- Realistic way to test clinical skills and knowledge
Ten out of eleven participating students recommended to use virtual situation in the future while using scenarios along with topics discussed in the class.
Conclusion: All students participated in the study had a very positive opinion on the use of vSim as an innovative teaching learning strategy, preparing them for professional nursing practice. Most of the students perceived that multiple vSim exercises helped them bridge gap between nursing theory and clinical practice, improving their problem solving abilities, decision making, clinical judgment and reasoning skills in acute care clinical settings.
Virtual simulations were very well perceived by all participating students as a method of developing clinical reasoning and mastery of clinical skills. This study provides evidence that interactive virtual unfolding simulation scenarios help to facilitate transformation of senior nursing students to health care professionals providing safe high quality care to the complex patient population. Moreover, vSim can be used in training of practicing professional nurses to enhance their performance.
Overall, a virtual simulation environment offers a unique safe and cost-effective method to learn and practice a variety of nursing skills while helping nursing students and practicing nurses to achieve a competency. The results of this study demonstrate that students improve their skills and critical thinking while caring for the virtual patients.
Notes
This session was accepted for presentation at the International Nursing Research Congress 2017, but not presented.
Sigma Membership
Chi Theta
Type
Poster
Format Type
Text-based Document
Study Design/Type
N/A
Research Approach
N/A
Keywords:
Problem Solving Abilities, Professional Nursing Practice, Virtual Reality Simulation
Recommended Citation
Van Dyke, Olga; Heden, Cindy; and Cheng, Betty, "Virtual reality simulation: An alternative strategy for development of problem solving skills in clinical practice" (2017). INRC (Congress). 282.
https://www.sigmarepository.org/inrc/2017/posters_2017/282
Conference Name
28th International Nursing Research Congress
Conference Host
Sigma Theta Tau International
Conference Location
Dublin, Ireland
Conference Year
2017
Rights Holder
All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.
All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.
All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.
Acquisition
Proxy-submission
Virtual reality simulation: An alternative strategy for development of problem solving skills in clinical practice
Dublin, Ireland
Purpose: There is increasing demand to prepare new nursing graduates to practice in today"s complex health care environment. While senior students may be well equipped with basics of nursing theory, their limited clinical experience may hinder their provision of care for patients with high complexity in emergency situations that require sound clinical decisions. As a result, there is a growing need for alternative experiential learning opportunities to allow students transition successfully from classroom education to clinical practice. Interactive virtual simulation software (vSim by Lippincott) provides students with a safe, but challenging environment, to help them apply content they learn in class and practice various clinical situations. Adoption of interactive virtual simulations in nursing education provides a vision to emerge senior nursing students into higher complexity care while preparing them to provide effective quality patient care in the clinical settings. The use of virtual simulation in nursing education and in health professions education in general is expanding with time (Aebersold, Tschannen, & Bathish, 2012). One of the main advantages of virtual simulation is that it provides students with convenient experience that can be repeated by those students as many times as necessary in order to achieve mastery in performing one or another task. In addition, virtual simulation promotes active learning and critical thinking while providing students with immediate feedback on their performance. The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of senior first degree nursing students enrolled into first degree accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) program on the advantages and challenges of practicing multiple interactive virtual simulations (vSim by Lippincott).
Methods:
Participants: A convenience sample (N=11) for this study consisted of the senior nursing students enrolled into 32 months ABSN program and taking the Comprehensive Nursing Review course. None of the participants have use virtual simulation cases as a learning strategy prior to this study.
Setting: This study was conducted at a private university in the northeastern part of the United States, in virtual simulation software was used for the first time as a teaching strategy to enhance face-to-face method for senior students.
Study Design: A survey method was used to explore the perceptions of the senior first degree accelerated BSN students about their feeling regarding virtual simulation scenarios, influence on clinical skills, decision making and problem solving abilities, most and least helpful features of the virtual simulation experience.
Results: Most students had positive responses regarding the use of virtual simulation software (vSim) as a supplement in the face-to-face course. The survey results show that majority of the students accepted a virtual simulation as an equivalent substitute for the real life clinical experience which allows to practice clinical skills to be used in a life threatening situations such as cardiopulmonary arrest. Absolutely all study participants indicated that virtual simulation contributes to development of the assessment skills, critical thinking abilities and prioritization of nursing interventions. The typical quotes included:
- Helped to practice decision making
- Helped to analyze priority steps in providing patient care
- Advanced my knowledge of prioritization and assessment
- Helped to practice what needed to keep the patient safe
While evaluating the effectiveness of the virtual simulation environment, students liked that they may practice skills multiple times without harming the real patient and receive a detailed immediate feedback on each interventions:
- Was very helpful for real life
- Feel like being in the situation with patient
- The experience close to real practice
- Realistic way to test clinical skills and knowledge
Ten out of eleven participating students recommended to use virtual situation in the future while using scenarios along with topics discussed in the class.
Conclusion: All students participated in the study had a very positive opinion on the use of vSim as an innovative teaching learning strategy, preparing them for professional nursing practice. Most of the students perceived that multiple vSim exercises helped them bridge gap between nursing theory and clinical practice, improving their problem solving abilities, decision making, clinical judgment and reasoning skills in acute care clinical settings.
Virtual simulations were very well perceived by all participating students as a method of developing clinical reasoning and mastery of clinical skills. This study provides evidence that interactive virtual unfolding simulation scenarios help to facilitate transformation of senior nursing students to health care professionals providing safe high quality care to the complex patient population. Moreover, vSim can be used in training of practicing professional nurses to enhance their performance.
Overall, a virtual simulation environment offers a unique safe and cost-effective method to learn and practice a variety of nursing skills while helping nursing students and practicing nurses to achieve a competency. The results of this study demonstrate that students improve their skills and critical thinking while caring for the virtual patients.