Introducing simulation technologies in nurse education: a nursing practice perspective

Computer simulations have been widely used for training purposes and proliferate in nursing and medicine. To take account of the multifaceted nature of nursing, a participatory design approach was applied in which nursing practice was utilized as a point of departure for exploring the educational value of the new technologies. In an empirical study, nurses with different degrees of experience were interviewed about those tasks within nursing that they perceived as difficult to learn, and how simulation technologies might contribute to learning the management of these. Six aspects of expertise emerged:judging the patient's health status; monitoring care interventions; prioritizing and carrying out interventions efficiently; communicating with patients and their relatives; cooperating with other members of the staff; and managing complexity. Most aspects include dynamic and complex features, and simulations were judged to be useful for capturing these and, subsequently, for training. Other aspects, such as focusing on human interaction, were assessed to be less prolific. Compared to traditio nal teaching media, the dynamic featuresof simulations were judged to be most useful. Training with simulations was regarded as complementary to other forms of instruction, and the curricular integration of simulations decisive in determining their cont ribution to learning in nurse education.