Second Life(®) Virtual Learning in Public Health Nursing.

BACKGROUND With limited available public health nursing clinical placements, nurse educators are challenged to create alternative learning experiences that engage students. METHOD Nursing faculty developed three Second Life® virtual learning scenarios in family health, disaster preparedness, and home safety areas of interest as a supplement to clinical experiences for undergraduate senior nursing students in a public health nursing course. Student perceptions of their learning were evaluated by a survey and focus group. RESULTS Although students perceived learning public health nursing knowledge, they were less likely to agree that the experience was as effective for learning about public health nursing when compared with on-site clinical experiences. CONCLUSION The use of Second Life is an effective learning platform for teaching undergraduate nursing students public health nursing when clinical experiences are difficult to obtain. Nursing faculty need to ensure technological challenges are addressed and that scenarios are realistic, and engage students through interactive collaboration. [J Nurs Educ. 2016;55(9):536-540.].

[1]  Florence Myrick,et al.  A critical examination of high-fidelity human patient simulation within the context of nursing pedagogy. , 2009, Nurse education today.

[2]  J. Hayden,et al.  Simulation in Nursing Education: Current Regulations and Practices , 2014 .

[3]  Lori I. Kidd,et al.  Effectiveness of a second life(®) simulation as a teaching strategy for undergraduate mental health nursing students. , 2012, Journal of psychosocial nursing and mental health services.

[4]  Diane M Wink,et al.  Virtual Learning Environments: Second Life , 2010, Nurse educator.

[5]  Marjorie A Schaffer,et al.  Population-based public health interventions: practice-based and evidence-supported. Part I. , 2004, Public health nursing.

[6]  Dana Tschannen,et al.  Second Life®: A New Strategy in Educating Nursing Students , 2012 .

[7]  Jessica L Doolen,et al.  Effectiveness of a Poverty Simulation in Second Life®: Changing Nursing Student Attitudes toward Poor People , 2014, International journal of nursing education scholarship.

[8]  J. McCallum,et al.  Exploring nursing students' decision-making skills whilst in a Second Life clinical simulation laboratory. , 2011, Nurse education today.

[9]  M. Stanley,et al.  Teaching undergraduate nursing students about environmental health: addressing public health issues through simulation. , 2013, The Journal of nursing education.

[10]  Kaya Yılmaz,et al.  Constructivism: Its Theoretical Underpinnings, Variations, and Implications for Classroom Instruction. , 2008 .

[11]  David Bodily,et al.  Teaching with Second Life®: Hemorrhage Management as an Example of a Process for Developing Simulations for Multiuser Virtual Environments , 2012 .

[12]  Meyrick Chow,et al.  Extending the technology acceptance model to explore the intention to use Second Life for enhancing healthcare education , 2012, Comput. Educ..

[13]  P. Jeffries,et al.  The NCSBN National Simulation Study: A Longitudinal, Randomized, Controlled Study Replacing Clinical Hours with Simulation in Prelicensure Nursing Education , 2014 .

[14]  JOY DON BAKER,et al.  Nursing education gets a second life. , 2011, AORN journal.

[15]  Bonnie J Schmidt,et al.  Implementing the Virtual World of Second Life Into Community Nursing Theory and Clinical Courses , 2010, Nurse educator.

[16]  Jone Tiffany,et al.  Teaching/Learning in Second Life: Perspectives of Future Nurse-Educators , 2014 .

[17]  Eric B. Bauman,et al.  Strategies to Incorporate Virtual Simulation in Nurse Education , 2014 .

[18]  Paul M. Irwin,et al.  A Systematic Review of the Experience of Using Second Life in the Education of Undergraduate Nurses. , 2015, The Journal of nursing education.