Abstract:

Clinical simulation is a useful pedagogical approach that allows nursing students to rehearse behaviors and practice their clinical and decision-making skills. It is also an effective educational model to evaluate skills learning through varied real-life situational experiences, without placing clients or institutional resources at risk. Delivering compelling content in innovative ways is a challenge for educators. Virtual Reality (VR) has proven to be a medium for delivering immersive content. Well-designed VR content can assist nursing students in developing critical thinking and problem-based learning skills in an immersive environment. VR helps stimulate interest and impedes students from being passive observers.

In this paper, we present the use of immersive VR clinical simulation (VRCS) to teach the concept of situational awareness. The simulation lab created a clinical setting with multiple errors using a high-fidelity manikin as the patient. The errors encompassed items that were out-of-place, issues of safety, and overt or subtle errors. We filmed the setting, called "crazy classroom," using a 360-degree camera. A total of 53 undergraduate nursing students in their Foundations of Nursing course used a head-mounted display (HMD) to enter the simulated clinical setting. The purpose of this exercise was to have students identify as many errors as possible within a 5-minute time frame. Exposing students to an environment rife with errors illustrates the importance of situational awareness. After 5 minutes, with a faculty member leading the discussion, students listed the number of errors they identified while viewing the simulation. Students re-entered the simulated clinical setting after the discussion to discover items they may have missed. A survey was conducted after the session to gauge the student's satisfaction with using VR to learn new concepts such as situational awareness. The survey also explored whether the students believed that they could apply what they learned in a real clinical setting. Forty-eight out of 53 students agreed or strongly agreed that they would like to continue to use VR to learn new concepts. An equal number of students responded that they agree or strongly agree that VR simulation helped them to understand the concept of situational awareness better.

Keywords:

Virtual Reality, Clinical Simulation, Nursing Education, Active Learning Strategy.