Comparison of Debriefing Methods and Learning Outcomes in Human Patient Simulation

Background: The purpose of this study was to compare student outcomes after three different methods of simulation debriefing; these were facilitated debriefing, feedback, and self-debriefing. Method: The study included 95 second semester undergraduate nursing students divided into four groups based on assigned laboratory faculty and course sections. Each group received one debriefing method consistently during the course of a semester, except for one group who received all three methods in a predetermined sequence. Institutional review board approval was obtained, and the Visual Aural Read/Write Kinesthetic Learning Style Questionnaire was administered to acquire data on student learning preferences. Results: The group that received facilitated debriefing had the greatest improvement in scores from simulations 1 to 3 and the highest score of the groups on the final individual skills observation simulation. Conclusions: Data from this study demonstrated that students and faculty preferred facilitated debrief to self-debrief or feedback. (C) 2017 International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.