Combination of flipped learning format and virtual simulation to enhance emergency response ability for newly registered nurses: a quasi-experimental design

ABSTRACT

Newly registered nurses’ emergency response capability falls short of their employers’ expectations. Therefore, they need to develop this ability to cope with various changes in the clinic. Unfortunately, traditional learning has not been good enough in cultivating nursing skills and fostering self-directed learning which plays a key role in the learning process. Therefore, we attempted to integrate virtual simulation into the flipped learning format to optimize the training of newly registered nurses, and investigate its effectiveness. This study employs a pre- and post-test quasi-experimental design. The control and experimental groups each consisted of 43 newly registered nurses recruited in 2019 and 2020, respectively. The control group was trained using the traditional learning while the experimental group used the flipped learning format combined with virtual simulation for a 4–week emergency response training course. The data were collected through The Assessment Questionnaire of Clinical First-aid Capability of Nurses in the Non-Emergency Department and the Rating Scale of Self-directed Learning Competence for Nurses. Multivariate analysis of covariance was used for statistical analysis and the results show that the flipped learning combined with virtual simulation is more suitable and effective in improving nurses’ emergency response abilities and self-directed learning compared to traditional learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Flipped learning
• virtual simulation
• emergency response ability
• nursing education

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank nursing graduates for participating and Editage (www.editage.cn) for English language editing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Graduate Textbook Construction project of Tongji University in 2021 [2021JC26].

Notes on contributors

Minhui Zhong

Minhui Zhong, Bachelor's degree, is a registered nurse in Tongji University Shanghai First Maternity and Infant Hospital, a postgraduate student of the School of Medicine of Tongji University in Shanghai, China. Research interests include clinical nursing and psychology.

Jinxia Jiang

Jinxia Jiang, associate professor of nursing, is a head nurse of the Emergency Department in Shanghai tenth People's Hospital of Tongji University; a lecturer and master tutor in nursing at Tongji University; an evidence-based nursing tutor of Ohio State University; a member of Emergency Committee of China Association of Integrative Medicine and the Emergency Committee of Shanghai Nursing Association; a reviewer of China Journal of Emergency Resuscitation and Disaster Medicine. Research interests include emergency and critical care nursing, nursing education and nursing management.

Han Zhang

Han Zhang, Bachelor's degree, is a registered nurse in Tongji University Shanghai First Maternity and Infant Hospital, a postgraduate student of the School of Medicine of Tongji University in Shanghai, China. Research interests include clinical nursing and obstetrics.

Xia Duan

Xia Duan, M.D, Ph.D., associate professor of nursing, is a deputy director of nursing Department in Tongji University Shanghai First Maternity and Infant Hospital; a lecturer and master tutor in nursing at Tongji University; a member of the Chinese Aging Well Association, Chinese Chapter Congress of the International Union of Angiology and Psychology Committee of Shanghai Nursing Association; a reviewer of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and Journal of Nursing Science. Research interests include emergency and critical care nursing, Cardiovascular nursing, nursing education, nursing management and psychology. Recently years have published more than 50 papers (in Chinese and English) as the first or corresponding author, and have participated in nursing textbook editing many times.