The experimental group (n=21) used a case-based learning approach, with clinical virtual simulator as a resource, whereas the control group (n=21) used the same case-based learning approach, with recourse to a low-fidelity simulator and a realistic environment. The participants, split into 2 groups, had a lesson with the same objectives and timing.

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of clinical virtual simulation with regard to knowledge retention, clinical reasoning, self-efficacy, and satisfaction with the learning experience among nursing students.Ī randomized controlled trial with a pretest and 2 posttests was carried out with Portuguese nursing students (N=42). However, little is known about its effectiveness with regard to satisfaction, self-efficacy, knowledge retention, and clinical reasoning.

Clinical virtual simulation can provide a pedagogical strategy and can act as a facilitator of knowledge retention, clinical reasoning, improved satisfaction with learning, and finally, improved self-efficacy. It is a type of simulation that places people in a central role through their exercising of motor control skills, decision skills, and communication skills using virtual patients in a variety of clinical settings. Clinical virtual simulation is the recreation of reality depicted on a computer screen and involves real people operating simulated systems. Innovations in health simulation technologies have led to clinical virtual simulation. Nowadays, professors play the role of learning facilitators rather than simple 'lecturers' and face students as active learners who are capable of attributing individual meanings to their personal goals, challenges, and experiences to build their own knowledge over time. The development of knowledge and clinical reasoning is influenced not only by students' intrinsic factors but also by extrinsic factors such as satisfaction with taught content, pedagogic resources and pedagogic methods, and the nature of the objectives and challenges proposed.

In the field of health care, knowledge and clinical reasoning are key with regard to quality and confidence in decision making.

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