Combination of flipped learning format and virtual simulation to enhance emergency response ability for newly registered nurses: a quasi-experimental design

Newly registered nurses’ emergency response capability falls short of their employers’ expectations. Therefore, they need to develop this ability to cope with various changes in the clinic. Unfortunately, traditional learning has not been good enough in cultivating nursing skills and fostering self-directed learning which plays a key role in the learning process. Therefore, we attempted to integrate virtual simulation into the flipped learning format to optimize the training of newly registered nurses, and investigate its effectiveness. This study employs a pre- and post-test quasi-experimental design. The control and experimental groups each consisted of 43 newly registered nurses recruited in 2019 and 2020, respectively. The control group was trained using the traditional learning while the experimental group used the flipped learning format combined with virtual simulation for a 4–week emergency response training course. The data were collected through The Assessment Questionnaire of Clinical First-aid Capability of Nurses in the Non-Emergency Department and the Rating Scale of Self-directed Learning Competence for Nurses. Multivariate analysis of covariance was used for statistical analysis and the results show that the flipped learning combined with virtual simulation is more suitable and effective in improving nurses’ emergency response abilities and self-directed learning compared to traditional learning.