ViCoSim: Virtual Communication Simulator

Research by Boet et al. (2014) and McGaghie et al. (2014) shows that this method has a direct positive effect on care provision (Boet et al., 2014).

Debriefing

In simulation education, the main learning effect lies in the debriefing. This is a facilitated reflection on experiential learning to help uncover gaps and knowledge in the participants. In the SIM@rt team, we use the evidence-based PEARLS methodology as a didactic framework (Eppich & Cheng, 2015). PEARLS stands for promoting excellence and reflective learning in simulation and combines three educational strategies:

• self-reflection;
• facilitating exploration;
• directive feedback.

In three defined phases the same cycle is always followed:

• First, space is given for venting feelings about the scenario.
• Then there is a descriptive phase of what happened.
• This is followed by the analytical phase, in which the supervising lecturer, acting as a facilitator, asks more in-depth questions about the situations presented.

Existing simulation education in Bachelor's degree program in Nursing

High-tech dolls

The nursing program has years of experience with high-tech dolls. Dolls have the advantage that they enable both medical actions (e.g. placing injections…) and communicative interventions (e.g. listening techniques). The dolls can speak and eye movements, which allows students to train their communication skills. However, a lot of non-verbal communication is lost in this process.

Simulant actors

In the training with simulant actors in a real-life context, there is both verbal and non-verbal communication. Medical actions, on the other hand, are more limited for ethical reasons. Other disadvantages are the cost and the lack of resources and time: simulation equipment is expensive and not available everywhere. In addition the organization is not obvious for a large number of students and trained simulant actors (Okla & Eden, 2015).

Transforming simulation education to VR

In this project we want to convert the existing expertise on those two traditional simulation teaching methods to a virtual reality format. VR allows participants to experience the benefits of traditional simulation training in a virtual world. This is complementary to the existing simulation training in the curriculum.

The existing track of simulation education in the bachelor's degree program in Nursing with up-to-date casuistry mainly trains communicative skills of care providers. This research project converts the content of this existing trajectory to a VR simulation module according to the vision of 'blended learning plus'.

It concerns both an adjustment (e-training) and an expansion (in terms of the number of cases, participating courses, etc.) of the existing training offer. The existing evidence-based didactic expertise of simulation education in existing programs forms the didactical framework for the teachers and learners of this e-programme.

Advantages

• Learners can prepare themselves better in the virtual world so that they feel more competent and familiar as soon as they are confronted with clients or patients during their internship or in the professional field;
• VR increases knowledge retention and clinical reasoning;
• VR makes the learning experience of the students more attractive (Padilha et al., 2019).

Communication skills training

VR simulation trains communication skills in a safe environment (Bracq et al., 2019). Until now, VR simulation in healthcare has mainly been used for technical skills and less for communication skills. So there is still a lot of room for development and also for research into this virtual teaching method.

Course training

A realistic case with trained actors is always presented with standard scenarios for communication training in 360° VR recordings. The simulation proceeds in a succession of scenes that vary in a tree structure according to the choices made by the student. In this way, a high-quality standardized learning experience is offered time and again.

A lecturer can supervise the virtual simulations and determine the course of the scenario. A fellow student can also take on supervision by assessing and debriefing the simulation with a predetermined schedule. Through a didactically elaborated guideline, students can undergo the learning experience in a blended manner at any location.

Realization in seven health care courses

The project is being realized in seven healthcare courses of the Health and Care expertise network: nursing, midwifery, occupational therapy, podiatry, audiology, speech therapy and oral care.