BACKGROUND: Educational practices involve essential principles for the learning segment in the most varied teaching strategies, with realistic simulation being an important strategy that can be used in the curriculum matrix, enriching the teaching-learning system and expanding the skills and competences of students. However, the use of new teaching strategies requires constant assessments as to their acceptance, applicability and effectiveness, both as a teacher and as a student. Objectives: Assess the student's perception of the ability of a strategy developed in a simulation scenario, being able to promote active learning; encourage collaborative work; offer different ways of learning and applying knowledge and conducting a reflection/evaluation on your learning. METHOD: Descriptive and cross-sectional study with 110 students of the 5th semester of the Medicine course at a Medical School in Salvador-Bahia between February and June 2019, in which simulations of patient care were performed in Clinical Medicine, in the Dementia scenario, with the use of actors, with whom the students could interact. A student was drawn, or a volunteer emerged, to participate directly in the simulated attendance, while the non-drawn ones observed and made considerations after the simulation. The selected student performed patient care individually depending on the scenario presented, performing anamnesis and communication. At the end of the simulation scenario, each student answered the instrument only once “Educational Practices Questionnaire (student version)”, which was developed by other researchers and validated in Portuguese to assess the best practices used in the simulation scenario, consisting of 16 items, with two subscales (one related to educational practices and the other the importance attributed to the item), being separated into four thematic blocks: active learning; collaboration; different ways of learning; and high expectations (both teacher and student must be motivated to teach and learn). The response model is a 5-point Likert type, with the option of “not applicable” when the statement does not concern the simulated practice performed. RESULTS: A total of 91 questionnaires out of the 110 answered were considered valid and analyzed. For each thematic block, a high percentage was observed for the Frequency of agreement, varying from 94.4% for the thematic block "High expectations" to 61.5% for "Collaboration"; the frequency of disagreement was relatively low, ranging from 20.1% for “Collaboration” to no frequency for “High expectations”. A high percentage was observed for the Frequency of Importance, ranging from 98.9% for the thematic blocks "High expectations" and "Different ways of learning" to 88.4% for "Collaboration"; the Frequency of Non-Importance was relatively low, varying from 2.1% for “Collaboration” to no frequency in “Active learning” and “High expectations”. CONCLUSION: This study showed that simulation becomes a viable possibility to assist the student's preparation, because they realize that the simulation is based on good educational practices and is also considered important for learning and teamwork.
