Søknad NFR /Finnut 2017 - PATH: Harnessing the path from training to working life with technological and pedagogical innovation

Project summary

Health and care services will experience significant skills and personnel
challenges over the next decades. Recently, emphasis has been placed on
the quality and relevance of the health professional education programs. It
remains questionable whether they provide students with skills necessary to
enter the workforce and provide continuity in health services.
PATH aims at creating a seamless transition from training and clinical
placement during education to clinical practice (working life), filling the
gap between the theoretical and practical domains. This will be done
through interviews with clinical supervisors/teachers, nursing students at
their work-based learning, newly graduated and specialist nurses at their
workplace and their clinical managers which will uncover the needs and
contribute to the understanding about how to create a smooth transition.
Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) through smartphones will also
be employed to study people?s behaviours in real time in their natural
settings and reduce recall bias. These data will give the research group the
opportunity to design a simulation training program tailored to the needs
of the different stakeholders and purposefully addressing the challenges
identified through the initial data-collection. Simulation-based education
(SBE) has become an invaluable pedagogical model for training clinical skills
and the evidence of its effect is rising. As simulation training is a fairly new
pedagogical approach faculty development training becomes necessary to
maximise the effect of training. SBE and faculty development will create the
means for learning and transfer to practice. One problem that has previously been observed is that students moving from
an educational context into a working environment are challenged by not being familiar with routines and guidelines at the workplaces. Virtual reality
(VR) environments will therefore be developed to support nurses in getting
acquainted with the workplace.