The Effect of Nursing Faculty Presence on Students' Level of Anxiety, Self-Confidence, and Clinical Performance During a Clinical Simulation Experience

Abstract

Nursing schools design their clinical simulation labs based upon faculty's perception of the optimal environment to meet the students' learning needs, other programs' success with integrating high-tech clinical simulation, and the funds available. No research has been conducted on nursing faculty presence during a summative evaluation. The faculty's decision of where to position themselves during a summative evaluation should not be based on convenience, preference, or tradition but on evidence from research. The purpose of this study, partially guided by the Nursing Education Simulation framework, was to determine the effect of nursing faculty presence on students' level of state anxiety, self-confidence, and clinical performance during a summative evaluation of a clinical simulation experience. Data were collected for the quasi-experimental two group pretest-posttest study from a total of 91 participants during the Fall 2011 and Spring 2012 semesters at a large university in the north central region of the United States. Five research questions were posed and analyzed using various statistical procedures. The results indicated there were no statistically significant differences in the level of state anxiety, self-confidence, clinical performance and satisfaction of nursing students who were in the experimental group (Group A) and those in the control group (Group B). Results indicated, however, that there was a statistically significant difference in change in the state anxiety scores from pretest to posttest by group. The nursing faculty's presence in the simulation lab during a summative evaluation of a simulation experience resulted in a significant rise in the state anxiety level of the nursing students in the experimental group, yet this didn't impact the students' overall clinical performance during the clinical simulation experience. In conclusion, the results provided evidence to support nursing faculty positioning themselves in the control room or at a remote viewing location for a summative evaluation in order to avoid increasing students' level of state anxiety.