Helen Dugmore

Engaging health care participants in a simulated role in order to have a positive impact on the education and delivery of care by health professional remains a relatively new pedagogy. This paper describes an initiative in the discipline of nursing at The University of Western Australia that follows the process of engaging aged care communities in making a positive contribution to nursing student learning. The “Beyond the Teaching Nursing Home: Community Partnership of Learning and Care “project, utilises the principles of simulated patient engagement in the active development of clinical psychomotor and communication skills for nursing students in a simulated clinical learning environment. Students are able to practise different scenarios and responses in order to develop appropriate knowledge, skills and confidence followed by patient-referenced feedback. Students identify the advantages of having authentic patients contributing to their authentic learning.

The use of video recorders as an effective teaching and learning tool has been utilised in a number of educational settings. Minardi and Ritter (1997) suggest that one of the main advantages of video recording analysis is that it can provide the learner with immediate feedback on the skills they have practiced. Within the clinical skills learning environment, student nurses are required to be actively involved in the feedback process in order to develop their self-assessment skills. It is this concept of self-assessment when using Point Of View (POV) video glasses that was the focus of this study. Following a brief instruction and practice period, first year nursing student nurses at a University in Western Australia were able to perform an aseptic technique while wearing the POV glasses. Subsequent analysis of the audio and visual recording of their practice enabled students to self-assess their performance against a competency assessment tool. Using a mixed method approach, data was gathered about students’ reflections on using the POV glasses. Results demonstrated that students found the POV video glasses easy to use, developed confidence in using video recording and playback and were able to reflect on the value of self-assessment to improve clinical skills.