Facilitator development for pre-registration health professions simulation: a scoping review protocol

The growing demand for health professional education intensifies the need for learning innovations such as simulation: facilitating predictable, realistic, experiential learning that prepares students for practice. To achieve this, facilitators must provide pedagogically sound, psychologically safe simulation. High-quality simulation enhances students' self-efficacy, critical thinking, and clinical reasoning. Despite increasing integration of simulation into curricula, best practices for facilitator development remain unknown, risking the quality and safety of simulations.

This scoping review will identify the extent and type of evidence guiding the development of simulation facilitators in pre-registration health professional programs for any type and stage of simulation.

This review will consider reports on simulation facilitator development for educators of pre-registration health professional students in academic settings. The simulation may be delivered using any delivery modality and in any language. Reports focused on simulation facilitators working in professional settings, within graduate programs, or with already licensed learners will be excluded.

The review will follow the JBI methodology for scoping reviews. The databases to be searched will include CINAHL (EBSCOhost), Embase, ERIC (EBSCOhost), MEDLINE (Ovid), and ProQuest Dissertation and Theses, from 2005 to the present. Titles and abstracts, followed by full-text articles, will be screened by 2 independent reviewers. Data will be extracted using a pre-defined data extraction form and content analysis will be conducted. Extracted data will be presented using tables, charts, and a narrative summary.

Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/wf9zc.