Impact of a Paper vs Virtual Simulated Patient Case on Student-Perceived Confidence and Engagement

Abstract

Objective. To evaluate online case simulation vs a paper case on student confidence and engagement. Design. Students enrolled in a pharmacotherapy laboratory course completed a patient case scenario as a component of an osteoarthritis laboratory module. Two laboratory sections used a paper case (n553); three sections used an online virtual case simulation (n581). Student module performance was assessed through a submitted subjective objective assessment plan (SOAP) note. Students completed pre/post surveys to measure self-perceived confidence in providing medication management. The simulation group completed postmodule questions related to realism and engagement of the online virtual case simulation. Group assessments were performed using chi-square and Mann Whitney tests. Assessment. A significant increase in all 13 confidence items was seen in both student groups following completion of the laboratory module. The simulation group had an increased change of confidence compared to the paper group in assessing medication efficacy and documenting a thorough assessment. Comparing the online virtual simulation to a paper case, students agreed the learning experience increased interest, enjoyment, relevance, and realism. The simulation group performed better on the subjective SOAP note domain though no differences in total SOAP note scores was found between the two groups. Conclusion. Virtual case simulations result in increased student engagement and may lead to improved documentation performance in the subjective domain of SOAP notes. However, virtual patient cases may offer limited benefit over paper cases in improving overall student self-confidence to provide medication management.

Introduction of integrated dental training jaw models and rubric criteria

“…8,18 Self-assessment requires practice and experience. 10,11,19,20 Satheesh et al previously reported that student-faculty reliability was weak, 18 while Abe et al reported that self-assessment scores using rubric sheets were higher the second time compared with the first and that experience led to higher self-assessment scores. 11 The training course described in the present study represented the first opportunity for undergraduate students in 2014 and 2015 to assess their own performance using rubric sheets.…”

A Narrative Overview of the Effectiveness of E-learning in Pharmacy Education

“…Learning was also assessed subjectively, through pre-, mid-and post-intervention surveys in twenty-six (46.4%) studies [11,12,[14][15][16][17][18][19]23,25,29,30,35,37,[41][42][43]45,46,50,52,56,57,59,62,64] and all but two [19,42] of these studies reported that the e-learning intervention was effective. Taglieri et al, [19] investigated the effect of completion of online virtual patient cases on student performance and confidence in mock clinic visits.…”

“…Of the fifty-six studies that were reviewed, all were limited by methodological flaws. Thirty (53.6%) studies [11,12,[14][15][16][17]19,20,22,[27][28][29][30][31][32][33][35][36][37]43,46,47,49,[52][53][54]56,58,63,64] did not establish the baseline knowledge, confidence or skills of participants and this is significant in two regards: It does not allow accurate comparison between groups, as differences in baseline knowledge may be responsible for differences in final knowledge; and it does not allow the impact of the intervention in increasing students' performance to be quantified. Three (5.4%) [25,55,57] of the nine studies that reviewed blended learning methods, failed to assess the effectiveness of the e-learning intervention independently of the face-to-face teaching.…”

“…Three (5.4%) [25,55,57] of the nine studies that reviewed blended learning methods, failed to assess the effectiveness of the e-learning intervention independently of the face-to-face teaching. Twenty-six (46.4%) studies [11,12,[14][15][16][17][18][19]23,25,29,30,35,37,[41][42][43]45,46,50,52,56,57,59,62,64] measured the effectiveness of e-learning intervention on the basis of self-reported data. These findings are therefore vulnerable to response bias as well as recall bias, when participants were required to make a post-intervention assessment of their pre-intervention skills, knowledge or confidence [65,66].…”

“…These findings are therefore vulnerable to response bias as well as recall bias, when participants were required to make a post-intervention assessment of their pre-intervention skills, knowledge or confidence [65,66]. Several studies were limited by their small sample size [11,16,29,30,34,36,59,61] and only four studies [9,32,43,57] reported calculation of sufficient power to detect a statistically significant difference. Twelve studies (21.4%) had a poor response rate (less than 60%) [9,10,12,14,18,19,22,39,40,46 ,60,62] and four (7.1%) studies [26,29,37,53] did not report response rate.…”