Baccalaureate Nursing Student’s Evaluation of Patient Simulator Experiences to Reinforce Cardiovascular Content

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to analyze student evaluations of patient simulator experiences at 4 different points. These evaluations are a component of a pilot study designed to evaluate the effect of curriculum using the patient simulator on nursing students’ mastery of cardiovascular content over four semesters during their baccalaureate nursing clinical courses. Theoretical/conceptual framework: The theoretical framework is based on Malcolm Knowles (1980) Principles of Adult Learning. Knowles theorizes that adults need to participate in the learning process that actively engages the learner with multi-sensory strategies. Additionally, a critical review of the literature on use of patient simulators is used to create 11 annotated bibliographies. The trends and concepts of these findings will be presented in the poster. Subjects: A cohort of baccalaureate nursing students forms both the experimental and control group. Twelve subjects were randomly selected from volunteers in the class and comprise the experimental group. The remaining 31 subjects who volunteered for the study formed the control group. Methods: The experimental subjects completed a “cardiovascular patient simulator” evaluation after four different sessions with the patient simulator. The evaluation has two sections: one with 8 statements that subjects rate on a 5-point Likert type scale, and the other two questions that subjects provide a written response. Analysis: The analyses include descriptive statistics for each of the 8 statements (mean, range), a trending of average responses on each of the 8 statements over 4 time periods, and theme analysis for the 2 open responses on each of the 8 statements over the 4 time periods, and theme analysis for the two open response functions