Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
the project, have had an opportunity to experience each case
scenario, to engage with role play, observe and participate in
relevant clinical skills, engage with discussion centered on the
scenario, and receive feedback on their performance.
Central to the project was a philosophy of supporting the student’s
learning within a controlled and safe environment. With respect to
the importance of respecting the student’s view on engaging with
simulation activities, whether positive or negative, students were
advised that should they wish to abstain from engagement in
simulated activities, they could do so without compromising
learning. However, it was deemed important to engage students as
far as possible in all aspects of the experience on offer, in order that
first, students could receive maximum benefit from each activity
day, and second, in order to ensure validity within project
evaluation.
The evaluation strategy consisted of a pre-project questionnaire,
which aimed to capture the students’ initial thoughts regarding the
concept of simulated practice learning. Students completed this
questionnaire immediately after the launch day presentation in
which the background to and aims of the NMC project were
explained, followed by explanation of the project in our School. It is
possible that students began to form their opinions based on the
launch day information and therefore the validity of the data is open
to question in that all project information was presented in a
positive fashion. However, it was felt important that students had
at least a rudimentary understanding of the concept of simulated
practice learning and that not do so would have rendered any data
unreliable given the fact that students may have misunderstood or
misinterpreted the concept. The initial questionnaire was replicated
and administered to the students at the end of the final evaluation
day in order to complete the capture of pre and post project data.
Students were asked to identify themselves by personal number (p
number) in order to match the pre and post questionnaire as a
means of evaluating any attitudinal shift, whether positive or
negative, in a student’s feelings regarding simulated practice
learning. An additional questionnaire was administered to all
students at the end of each activity day. By wording the questions
specifically to the activities undertaken and how they enable the
achievement of programme outcomes it is possible to attribute any
attitudinal shift regarding simulated practice learning to the
experiences undertaken during the project.
It is important to recognize the value and place within evaluation, of
qualitative data. To this end, a final evaluation exercise was
undertaken with the students using nominal group technique
(Macphail, 2001) in order to capture qualitative data from a large
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