Abstract:

Nursing education is faced with many challenges including the advancements in technologies, intergenerational gap, increasing numbers of nursing applicants, decreasing faculty numbers, need to explore and utilize more active or experiential learning strategies, limited faculty resources, and lack of clinical placement opportunities (Butler, Veltre, & Brady, 2009; Cooper et al., 2010; Goolsby, 2001; Griffin-Sobel, 2009; Jeffries, 2008; Larew, Lessans, Spunt, Foster, & Covington, 2006; Lasater, 2007; Miller, Riley, Davis, & Hansen, 2008; Reilly & Spratt, 2006; Shepherd et al., 2007; Shepherd, 2010). In light of these challenges, nursing requires collaboration with computer science, education, and medicine to provide engaging learning opportunities for nursing students that adequately prepare them for the complex clinical environment. This interprofessional approach will undertake an interdisciplinary perspective on the challenges encountered by the current pedagogy in nursing education. Interdisciplinarity is "the bringing together of distinctive components of two or more disciplines" in research or education, leading to new knowledge which would not be possible without this integration. While multidisciplinarity occurs when disciplines work side by side in distinct problems or aspects of a single problem, interdisciplinarity seeks to combine disciplines to enhance the learning in one or more of the disciplines, or to apply discipline-based methods to real life situations for interdisciplliarity keeps disciplines separated and in focus. It has clear objectives that include both critical thinking skills and in-depth content. Furthermore, the concept of patient centred care demands a cultural shift in how health-care professions are educated. When an interprofessional pedagogy is implemented, clarification and understanding of roles are enhanced (Rodehorst, Wilhelm & Jensen, 2005) and positive attitudes regarding collaboration between nursing and medical students are experienced (Iliadi, 2010; Reese, Jeffries, & Engum, 2010). Simulation, a technological tool, engages students in applying cognitive, non-technical, and technical skills in a controlled environment (Alinier, Hunt, Gordon, & Harwood, 2006; Baker et al., 2008; Brill & Park, 2008; Cooper et al., 2010; Henneman et al., 2007; Lasater, 2007; Rothgeb, 2008; Salas et al., 2005).

Keywords:

Technology, nursing education, interdisciplanry, simulation, phenomenology.