<p> Nurses need sharp, clinical reasoning skills to respond to critical situations and to be successful at work in a complex and challenging healthcare system. While past research has focused on using virtual learning environments to teach clinical reasoning, there has been limited research on the experiences of nursing faculty and there is a need for research to include a clearer understanding of potentially significant insights that nurse educators may gain from teaching clinical reasoning skills with virtual learning tools. This qualitative study identified and described nursing faculty experiences with teaching clinical reasoning skills when using virtual learning environments. The researcher interviewed eight nursing faculty and content analyzed the data from those interviews. Findings from this qualitative study supported past research and added to the body of knowledge regarding faculty members’ use of virtual learning environments. For example, faculty experiences indicated that virtual learning environments included patient situations that offered faculty a way to better assess students. It was found that assessing a student in the clinical setting could be very subjective, while the virtual environment is finite. Faculty experiences indicated that one of the challenges to teaching clinical reasoning skills with virtual learning environments was that students found that virtual communication was difficult and faculty claimed that using virtual environments increased faculty workload. The findings of this study provided deeper understanding into experiences reported by nursing faculty on the teaching of clinical reasoning skills when using a virtual learning environment. Recommendations for further research include using a larger sample size, a specified education level population, traditional, face-to-face classes as compared to classes from an online, or blended program, and investigating use of a specific virtual learning environment, in new research.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:10260999 |
| Date | 06 April 2017 |
| Creators | Zacharzuk-Marciano, Tara |
| Publisher | Capella University |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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