Developing a Virtual Hospital Game into a Learning Environment for Nursing
Keywords:
virtual learning environment, learning game, nursing, learningAbstract
Refereed article
The article describes the development of a virtual hospital game in nursing education. A real life infectious diseases ward and isolation room was modelled in the virtual environment. In the virtual environment, normal nursing procedures applied in the ward and isolation room were modelled into a virtual path which required students to practise the nursing routines. The purpose of the research was to study the development process of the virtual learning environment, to find out the benefits for learning the routines, to de-scribe students’ conceptions of the virtual hospital game as a learning method, and find out about the relations between mentoring and learning experiences. The research data were collected from nursing students who tested different versions of the virtual hospital game between 2009 and 2014. The research follows the design-based methodology. The learning environment was developed and studied at the same time. The collected data were mainly qualitative. The data collection methods were essays, interviews, and surveys. The qualitative data were analysed with contents analysis. Most students described having learned the nursing procedures concerning infection disease patients by using the game. Learning by doing and learning by problem-solving were found to be the main factors promoting learning. Using the virtual hospital game seemed to be technically challenging, particularly, for students who had no prior experience of virtual games. After the students were offered supplementary instruction in the computer lab classroom, their attitudes towards the game became more positive. Also their experienced learning outcomes increased. When the game was transferred to a more user-friendly environment, negative attitudes towards the game became very rare. Virtual games seem to make possible to create authentic nursing situations and contexts, and strengthen the development of mental models for nursing. Virtual learning environments have a lot of potential to be applied in education.
