Emergency care practitioner students’ satisfaction with simulation across two universities in South Africa

Strachan, Helen

Emergency care practitioner students’ satisfaction with simulation across two universities in South Africa

Master Thesis

2019

Abstract

Background Simulation learning is an educational strategy that has been used in South African Emergency Care Practitioner training for at least a decade. No authors had previously measured the satisfaction of South African ECP students with simulation learning. Objective The objectives of this study were to explore the simulation satisfaction of students from two universities in South Africa, and to describe the simulation satisfaction using descriptive statistics. Methods This cross-sectional, descriptive, quantitative study used an English, electronic version of the SSES with one item from the tool deleted. Results A total of 81 students participated in the study - 32 from Nelson Mandela University (NMU) (39.5%) and 49 (60.5%) from the University of Johannesburg (UJ). Statistically significant differences were noted between the two groups in all three factors between the students from NMU and UJ: debriefing and reflection (median = 3.5 vs median = 4.2; p = 0.000; r = 0.5), clinical reasoning (median = 3.6 vs median = 4.0; p=0.002; r = 0.3.) and clinical learning (median = 3.7 vs median = 4.0; p=0.005; r = 0.3). Conclusions Students from both universities have had an overall positive experience of simulation learning, the students from UJ reported higher levels of satisfaction with simulation. These data provide important information for ECP student educators and highlight areas of satisfaction as well as dissatisfaction with simulation learning. This study also indicates that further research is required into the ECP student experiences of simulation learning in South Africa.

Keywords

Emergency Medicine

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