Integrating technology in skills lab: Using smartphones for urinary catheter validation

Nurse educators are challenged to promote student success in all learning environments. Historically, students had increased anxiety associated with poor outcomes for indwelling urinary catheter skill validation. Faculty were looking for alternative ways to reduce stress, improve learning, and achieve successful student skill validations. The purpose of this process change project was to implement and evaluate an innovative teaching strategy of a psychomotor skill. Specifically, the integration of smartphone technology, self-evaluation, and peer feedback on indwelling urinary catheter skill validation was implemented and student perceptions of this strategy were evaluated. Throughout two, four-hour skills lab sessions, 81 students in the second semester of a baccalaureate program in nursing participated in peer pairs where they used smartphones to video and refine their indwelling urinary catheter skills through self-reflection and peer feedback. Students reported the utilization of technology and peer feedback positively enhanced learning and "decreased anxiety". However, students agreed integrating technology into a psychomotor skill validation was not without challenges. However, the benefits outweighed the challenges providing implications for nursing education to use smartphones to evaluate a psychomotor skill as a strategy to integrate technology, self-reflection, and peer feedback into a clinical skills lab environment.