The effect of role assignment in high fidelity patient simulation on nursing students: An experimental research study

Previous studies have evaluated the effectiveness of high fidelity patient simulators (HFPS) on nursing training; however, a gap exists on the effects of role assignment on critical thinking, self-efficacy, and situation awareness skills in team-based simulation scenarios.

This study aims to determine if role assignment and the involvement level related to the roles yields significant effects and differences in critical thinking, situation awareness and self-efficacy scores in team-based high-fidelity simulation scenarios.

A single factorial design with five levels and random assignment was utilized.

A public university-sponsored simulation center in the United States of America.

A convenience sample of 69 junior-level baccalaureate nursing students was recruited for participation.

Participants were randomly assigned one of five possible roles and completed pre-simulation critical thinking and self-efficacy assessments prior to the simulation beginning. Playing within their assigned roles, participants experienced post-partum hemorrhaging scenario using an HFPS. After completing the simulation, participants completed a situation awareness assessment and a post-simulation critical thinking and self-efficacy assessment.

Role assignment was found to have a statistically significant effect on critical thinking skills and a statistically significant difference in various areas of self-efficacy was also noted. However, no statistical significance in situation awareness abilities was found.

Results support the notion that certain roles required the participant to be more involved with the simulation scenario, which may have yielded higher critical thinking and self-efficacy scores than roles that required a lesser level of involvement.