Introduction: The nursing shortage continues to be a major topic of concern for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). Creative ways to educate more nurses are essential to bridge the nursing shortage gap. Background: Virtual Simulation (VS) has shown positive outcomes when used in unfolding simulations. Using VS technology, initial research supports using VS for hands-on skill building. Hands-on skills are primarily nursing skills that are performed at the bedside. Methods: This dissertation is a mixed-methods, exploratory design. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1989) was used to determine the usability and ease of use of a specific VS program. Two versions of the same skill were created, and the sample was randomly placed into either version A or version B. Version A used all 29 specific steps that were on the skill competency checklist as options and Version B condensed some of the steps into logical groupings for a total of 11 options. A comparison was made using the TAM (Davis, 1989) questionnaire for Version A and Version B. Three open-ended questions were asked to gather more feedback from the students. Results: Results indicate no differences in usability and ease of use using either version of the software. The final part of the dissertation used the information from the literature review and study to create a “how to use” virtual simulation for skill-building while keeping alignment with current standards. This information will add to the limited knowledge of using virtual simulation for hands-on skill building in undergraduate nursing education. Further studies with a larger sample size will add to the body of science which can potentially increase opportunities for access to online nursing education.

A simulated inner-city training scenario was found to increase skills in the area of turning when compared with a simulated off-track training scenario. To answer this question, two groups of ten participants (5 women and 5 men) were tested using three scripted scenarios focusing on left and right turns. The first training scenario (control group) is an off-track training scenario, which consists of a large asphalt lot and the use of orange cones; the second training scenario (experimental group) is an inner-city training scenario without the presence of vehicular traffic; and the third scenario (test scenario) is an inner-city scenario with the presence of vehicular traffic. A subject matter expert, who is also a former driver and trainer, evaluated and scored all participants on four critical turns (2 left and 2 rights). The apparatus used for this study was the V-sim non-motion simulator from General Electric (GE). A 2 x 4 factorial analysis was utilized to examine conditional differences as well as gender differences. While there were no gender differences, the results for overall turns were significant, F(1, 16) = 7.14, p = .017, η2 = 3.09. The mean for the control group was (M = 20.50, SD = 9.59) with the experimental group at, (M = 31.10, SD = 7.26).

Twenty-seven parents with young children were randomly assigned to an experimental group which underwent an affective skill-building program, or one of two control groups. Pre and postassessments measured levels of communication, discrimination, and child vocalization for each parent. Multilinear regression analysis indicated that final communication skills among the three groups were significantly different. Final communication skills of the experimental group were significantly greater than those of the Hawthorne control group. Final discrimination skills for the three groups showed a trend toward being significantly different. Levels of child vocalization did not show significant changes. The experimental program was successful in improving accurate parent-child communication in the affective realm.

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