Simulation‐based education for novices: complex learning tasks promote reflective practice.

Context: Simulated clinical immersion (SCI), in which clinical situations are simulated in a realistic environment, safely and gradually exposes novices to complex problems. Given their limited experience, undergraduate students can potentially be quite overwhelmed by SCI learning tasks, which may r...

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Publicado en:Medical Education Vol. 53; no. 4; pp. 380 - 390
Autores principales: Tremblay, Marie‐Laurence, Leppink, Jimmie, Leclerc, Gilles, Rethans, Jan‐Joost, Dolmans, Diana H J M
Formato: research tables/charts Journal Article
Publicado: Wiley-Blackwell Apr2019
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      dt: Apr2019
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      pub: Wiley-Blackwell
      place: Malden, Massachusetts
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        10.1111/medu.13748
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        atl: Simulation‐based education for novices: complex learning tasks promote reflective practice.
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        au:
          Tremblay, Marie‐Laurence
          Leppink, Jimmie
          Leclerc, Gilles
          Rethans, Jan‐Joost
          Dolmans, Diana H J M
        affil: Faculty of Pharmacy, Laval University, Quebec Quebec, Canada
      sug:
        subj:
          Learning Methods
          Simulations
          Students, Pharmacy Psychosocial Factors
          Students, Undergraduate Education
          Student Attitudes
          Task Performance and Analysis Evaluation
          Cognition Evaluation
          Human
          Semi-Structured Interview
          Confidence
          Random Assignment
          Learning Environment, Clinical
      ab: Context: Simulated clinical immersion (SCI), in which clinical situations are simulated in a realistic environment, safely and gradually exposes novices to complex problems. Given their limited experience, undergraduate students can potentially be quite overwhelmed by SCI learning tasks, which may result in misleading learning outcomes. Although task complexity should be adapted to the learner's level of expertise, many factors, both intrinsic and extraneous to the learning task, can influence perceived task complexity and its impact on cognitive processes. Objectives: The purpose of this mixed‐methods study was to understand the effects of task complexity on undergraduate pharmacy students' cognitive load, task performance and perception of learning in SCI. Methods: A total of 167 second‐year pharmacy students were randomly assigned to undertake one simple and one complex learning task in SCI consecutively. Participants' cognitive load was measured after each task and debriefing. Task performance and time on task were also assessed. As part of a sequential explanatory design, semi‐structured interviews were conducted with students showing maximal variations in intrinsic cognitive load to elucidate their perceptions of learning when dealing with complexity. Results: Although the complex task generated significantly higher cognitive load and time on task than the simple task, performance was high for both tasks. Qualitative results revealed that a lack of clinical experience, an unfamiliar resource in the environment and the constraints inherent to SCI, such as time limitations, hindered the clinical reasoning process and led to poorer self‐evaluation of performance. Simple tasks helped students gain more self‐confidence, whereas complex tasks further encouraged reflective practice during debriefings. Conclusions: Although complex tasks in SCI were more cognitively demanding and took longer to execute, students indicated that they learned more from them than they did from simple tasks. Complex tasks constitute an additional challenge in terms of clinical reasoning and thus provide a more valuable learning experience from the student's perspective. While complex learning tasks in simulation‐based training are more cognitively challenging and make novices more prone to generating mistakes, they are considered more valuable learning experiences from the trainees' perspective.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype:
        research
        tables/charts
        Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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