Utilizing an Integrated Learning Experience in a Senior Undergraduate Nursing Program

Abstract

Integration of nursing classroom didactics with clinical and simulation experiences is crucial to obtaining improved student learning outcomes and successful academic achievement. According to the Institute of Medicine (2010), to ensure the delivery of safe, patient-centered care across settings, the nursing education system must be improved. Patient needs have become more complicated, and nurses need to attain requisite competencies to deliver high-quality care. An important aim is to increase active learning behaviors and maintain student engagement, which will foster an effort to learn and meet the complex needs of patients today. The integration of clinical and simulation with theory concepts can contribute to successful student development, confidence, self-efficacy, and reenforced desire to learn which is the key to success and competence development. Teamwork and collaboration are valued in nursing educational objectives as well as in the workplace. Blending a shared vision and mutual expectations helps to meet goals.

Simulation: An active learning pedagogy for an undergraduate nursing leadership course

“…Although our evaluation of the simulation learning using a 15‐item learning tool pre and postscores did not differ significantly, we concluded that student scores were high indicating they were well prepared for the simulation and knew the information prior. During the simulation, students were able to successfully apply what they learned in a safe simulation environment 2 . Further exploration beyond nonsignificant t ‐test scores revealed three questions on the pre and posttest that did not perform well compared with the other 12 questions.…”

“…Low fidelity simulation as an alternative clinical experience is an excellent way to provide students with the opportunity to be exposed to lifelike clinical situations while promoting cognitive and affective learning at the same time reinforcing psychomotor skills of a senior level leadership course in an undergraduate nursing program 2,5,17 . It also provides the opportunity to scaffold students learning by using presimulation learning activities 13 .…”

“…Low fidelity simulation as an alternative clinical experience is an excellent way to provide students with the opportunity to be exposed to lifelike clinical situations while promoting cognitive and affective learning at the same time reinforcing psychomotor skills of a senior level leadership course in an undergraduate nursing program. 2,5,17 It also provides the opportunity to scaffold students learning by using presimulation learning activities. 13 The results of our simulation indicated that the addition of interpretive pedagogy enhanced students' ability to critically think about their actions and adjust their actions to real-life situation in different clinical practice scenarios.…”

“…Critical decision making, delegation, and effective communication are vital to safely manage patient care and nursing education must be improved to ensure high‐quality patient centered nursing care 2,7,8 . Low‐fidelity simulation provides the best environment outside of actual clinical experiences offering undergraduate BSN students the ability to practice realistic patient care and be more actively engaged in teaching and critical analysis while learning 3,6,9 .…”

“…Simulation is a way to provide learning of quality and safety competencies for undergraduate Bachelor of Science in nursing (BSN) students and to help them learn critical thinking skills in a safe and controlled environment 1 . Simulation‐based learning is becoming more common in nursing curricula and when simulation is related to clinical areas it is showing a positive impact on patient safety 2–4 . However, many undergraduate nursing leadership and management courses have not use simulation until more recently 3,5,6 .…”