Simulation activities using high fidelity human patient simulators, standardized patient actors, or a combination of both have been used in the education of health care professionals (Szauter, 2014). Realistic situations are recreated to promote learning, while providing protection from real-life errors (Foronda, Liu, & Bauman, 2013). Skills acquisition and critical thinking can be refined as participants have opportunities to learn from their mistakes (Richardson et al., 2014). Simulated experiences offer rich educational opportunities for novice faculty as they learn how to be effective clinical teachers (Hunt, Curtis, & Gore, 2015).
The Eastern Shore Academy and Mentorship Initiative (ES-FAMI), a partnership of three nursing programs and three hospitals in rural Maryland, was designed to develop quality adjunct faculty to address regional needs for clinical teachers. With an emphasis on recruiting multiethnic, multicultural faculty, a 30 contact hour program was established to provide foundational knowledge about teaching/learning theory, structuring a clinical experience, and providing feedback on student written work and clinical performance. Participants also engaged in simulated teaching encounters to refine their skills as new faculty. Simulations were used in two ways. First, participants viewed and critiqued teaching encounters developed by ESFAMI program faculty. Next, participants engaged in encounters with “standardized students”, trained actors who depicted common student behaviors requiring feedback and correction that were video-recorded for review and critique. Standardized students were current nursing students recruited from partner schools as well as actors from community theater groups. All “standardized students” attended a training session to master three scripts: a late and unprepared student, a student persistently using a cell phone to text with friends during a clinical rotation, and a student experiencing a dramatic downturn in quality of clinical performance. Each academy participant was assigned to one of the three scenarios which were enacted and video-recorded while the others completed a different activity. After everyone had completed a simulation, the group gathered to watch and discuss each video. Debriefing focused on the variety of approaches, how they reflected principles of teaching, learning, and giving feedback, as well as strengths and areas for growth. Based on participant feedback, the simulation activities were expanded to assure that everyone experienced at least two encounters with discussion and debriefing between each round of encounters. Standardized students also provided comments on how each faculty member made them feel during the encounter as well as their assessment of the effectiveness of each teacher’s feedback.
Results: All participants completed the online Academy Experience Evaluation (AEE), a 13 multiple choice item instrument with a 5-point Likert scale (higher scores indicating greater satisfaction) and four additional open-ended questions. Responses on the AEE revealed an overall positive experience with the ES-FAMI program with mean scores on the multiple choice items ranging from 4.40(+.50) to 4.76(+.52). The highest scoring items on the AEE related to applicability of the modules to clinical faculty role and the quality of the simulation experiences in participants for the clinical faculty role. Data from the open-ended questions supported the effectiveness of simulations in facilitating learning, problem solving, and developing skills in giving feedback among novice nursing faculty.
Discussion/Conclusion: The use of simulated teaching encounters is an effective strategy to prepare new part-time faculty but is not without its challenges. These include the time-intensive nature of recruitment, training, and re-training the standardized students, the need for budgetary support to underwrite actor costs ($16/hour), the availability of a dedicated simulation center with audio-video capture capabilities, and developing/refining the debriefing skills of the simulation facilitators. Nonetheless, the findings of this study have global implications for nursing education. Helping clinicians actualize the faculty role through the use of simulations in conjunction with a multi-modal educational experience, strengthens their transition from clinical practice to academia.