Satisfaction and Self-confidence Differences between Undergraduate Nursing Students Participating in and Observing Simulation Training

Nursing school educators are working to provide quality clinical education for students while managing decreasing resources and clinical sites. Each year, nursing schools turn students away due to constraints associated with undergraduate clinical nursing education. Due to these constraints, innovative clinical teaching methods have been encouraged. Simulation training is one alternative clinical teaching method that has received increasing attention in nursing education literature. Oftentimes, due to time and resource limitations, nursing students are divided into participant and observer roles during simulation in an effort to move students through simulation within time constraints. One current research problem associated with this method is that it is unknown whether participants and observers equally benefit from simulation in terms of satisfaction and self-confidence in learning. Satisfaction and self-confidence in learning are important variables for nursing researchers to evaluate as simulation has been shown to increase student self-confidence levels and self-confidence is an important determinant of future performance. Increased self-confidence has been associated with a greater understanding of complex content and an increased ability to recognize patient decline. This quantitative, experimental, 2x2 factorial design study explored whether participants and observers in low or high-fidelity simulation training obtained equal levels of satisfaction and self-confidence in learning. Participants consisted of 123 undergraduate Bachelor of Nursing degree students at a large, private, Southeastern University. No significant differences between student satisfaction and self-confidence were noted between student participants and observers following simulation training. In addition, no post-simulation differences in these two variables were noted for students in the low versus the high-fidelity simulation training. A post-simulation interaction effect between student role and fidelity was noted for satisfaction; however, this interaction was not found for self-confidence. Conclusions support previous literature indicating that learning outcomes for observers and participants in simulation training are similar. Because many simulation activities divide students into observers and participants, a thorough understanding of learning outcomes for these two groups is important for effective curriculum planning. Future studies should further examine potential learning outcome differences for participants and observers in simulation training and reproduce current studies in varying areas of the country with diverse nursing student populations.