Nursing Students' Satisfaction and Self-Confidence Towards High-Fidelity Simulation and Its Relationship with the Development of Critical Thinking in Hong Kong

Background: High-fidelity simulation (HFS) has become a popular teaching method in nursing education that allows students to practice their nursing care skills safely and effectively on human patient stimulators. Many studies have reported the positive impacts of nursing students' learning experience with the use of HFS on their development of self-confidence, problem solving and critical thinking. However, studies done on local nursing students are limited. Acknowledging that there may be cultural differences in the learning styles between Chinese and non-Chinese people, the existing evidence mainly come from western countries, which may have limited generalizability to Hong Kong nursing students.;Aims: This study aims to examine the satisfaction of the higher diploma nursing students on the researcher-developed high-fidelity simulation training program (HFSTP), and the effects of HFSTP on the students' self-confidence in learning and development in critical thinking.;Methods: A mixed methods study design was used in two phases. In Phase I, a quasi-experimental, one-group pretest-posttest design was employed to investigate the effects of HFSTP on nursing students' satisfaction, self-confidence, and critical thinking development. A total of 90 year 2 higher diploma nursing students participated in the Phase I study. The Kolb's experiential learning cycle guided the development of the HFSTP including two 1-hour simulation tutorials and two 1-hour HFS laboratory and debriefing sessions. Four questionnaires including Student Satisfaction and Self-Confidence in Learning (SCL), Critical Thinking Survey (CTS), Simulation Design Scale (SDS), and a Demographic Sheet were employed in the Phase I study. In Phase II, a focus-group interview was conducted to explore students' perception of HFSTP. A total of 24 students from the highest or lowest scores in the posttest SCL in Phase I were invited for the focus group interview. A self-developed semi-structured interview guide was used to explore the participants' perception of the HFSTP. Content analysis was used for data analysis.;Results: Results of paired t-test indicated that the mean scores of both SCL and CTS in the posttest were significantly higher than those of the pretest (p = <0.001). With regard to the evaluation of the design of HFSTP, the participants rated the fidelity and debriefing sessions as the most important learning features in the HFSTP. In the qualitative interview, most of the students expressed satisfaction towards the learning of HFSTP. Four main themes (1) A mimic clinical environment, (2) Holistic care experience, (3) Information and reflective thinking, and (4) Dosage of the HFS, emerged from the analysis of the qualitative data based on students' perceptions of having HFSTP as a new teaching strategy. Researcher concluded that the HFSTP, which is based on Kolb's experiential learning cycle, is an effective teaching strategy for promoting nursing students' self-confidence in learning and critical thinking development. Students were satisfied with the program design. Fidelity and debriefing sessions were reported as the two most important learning features of the HFSTP. Implications of the findings for nursing education, nursing practice and higher education administration will be presented at the end of the paper.