Immersion Clinical Simulation (ICS): what is a real Impact on knowledge acquisition?

Background: For several decades, ICS has been one of various teaching
strategies aimed at increasing students’ knowledge contain. To
this day, the impact of ICS on knowledge acquisition cannot be fully
ascertained because there are a lot methodological limitations: students’
self-reporting, identical pretest and post-test examinations, use
of a single post-test, or absence of a control group. However, all of
these situations affect the methodological quality of the studies and
theirs conclusions. Indeed, no studies have compared the impact of
ICS on knowledge acquisition from two group when perform the
equivalent but not similar Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) exam.
Methods: This prospective, multicentre study is based on a quasiexperimental
research. The participants in the experimental group
were taught using a series of four progressive ICS including debriefing
session in addition to internship, while those in the control group
were taught using internship alone. Before testing, we developed
and validated two similar exams about cardiology knowledge with a
RASH method. The knowledge of the participants was assessed twice
based on MCQ about their cardiology knowledge: version A in pretest
conditions (before internship and ICS) and version B in post-test
conditions. Each MCQ, about cardiology knowledge, consists of 35
items, including seven common items.
Results: A total of 177 nursing students (N=177) were involved in this
research project, including 93 (n=93) in the experimental group and
84 (n=84) in the control group. Under pretest conditions, the results
obtained by the two groups on version A of the exam questionnaire
were found statistically equivalent (p=.63). Under post-test conditions,
participants in the experimental group scored significantly
higher (p=.002).
Conclusion: The results of this research further more confirm the impact
of simulation on knowledge acquisition.