Using Social Simulation to Explore the Dynamics at Stake in Participatory Research

This position paper contributes to the debate on perspectives for simulating the social processes of science through the specific angle of participatory research. This new way of producing science is still in its infancy and needs some step back and analysis, to understand what is taking place on the boundaries between academic, policy and lay worlds. We argue that social simulation of this practice of cooperation can help in understanding further this new way of doing science, building on existing experience in simulation of knowledge flows as well as pragmatic approaches in social sciences.Participatory Research, Institutional Analysis and Design, Knowledge Flow, Agent Based Simulation

Simulation reframed

Background Simulation is firmly established as a mainstay of clinical education, and extensive research has demonstrated its value. Current practice uses inanimate simulators (with a range of complexity, sophistication and cost) to address the patient ‘as body’ and trained actors or lay people (Simulated Patients) to address the patient ‘as person’. These approaches are often separate. Healthcare simulation to date has been largely for the training and assessment of clinical ‘insiders’, simulating current practices. A close coupling with the clinical world restricts access to the facilities and practices of simulation, often excluding patients, families and publics. Yet such perspectives are an essential component of clinical practice. Main body This paper argues that simulation offers opportunities to move outside a clinical ‘insider’ frame and create connections with other individuals and groups. Simulation becomes a bridge between experts whose worlds do not usually intersect, inviting an exchange of insights around embodied practices—the ‘doing’ of medicine—without jeopardising the safety of actual patients. Healthcare practice and education take place within a clinical frame that often conceals parallels with other domains of expert practice. Valuable insights emerge by viewing clinical practice not only as the application of medical science but also as performance and craftsmanship. Such connections require a redefinition of simulation. Its essence is not expensive elaborate facilities. Developments such as hybrid, distributed and sequential simulation offer examples of how simulation can combine ‘patient as body’ with ‘patient as person’ at relatively low cost, democratising simulation and exerting traction beyond the clinical sphere. The essence of simulation is a purposeful design, based on an active process of selection from an originary world, abstraction of what is criterial and re-presentation in another setting for a particular purpose or audience. This may be done within traditional simulation centres, or outside in local communities, public spaces or arts and performance venues. Conclusions Simulation has established a central role in clinical education but usually focuses on learning to do things as they are already done. Imaginatively designed, simulation offers untapped potential for deep engagement with patients, publics and experts outside medicine

The Science and Art of Health Behavior: Theory of Prevention.

poster abstractAccording to Glanz, Rimer and Viswanath (2008), “The science and art of health behavior and health education are eclectic and rapidly evolving; they reflect an amalgamation of approaches, methods, and strategies from social and health sciences, drawing on theoretical perspectives, research, practice tools of such diverse disciplines as psychology, sociology, anthropology, communications, nursing, economics, and marketing” (p. 1). The view of health education as an instrument of social change has received renewed interest in the past few years. Most recently, experts have recommended that interventions on social and behavioral factors related to health should link multiple levels of influence, including the individual, interpersonal, institutional, community, and policy levels (Smedley and Syme, 2000). The author’s current work on a health education simulation titled; Suicide Intervention Prevention focuses on a health behavior theory of prevention. Prevention theory is used to guide the framework for this simulation. Examples of causal relationships (immersion and interaction) between the characters in the simulation and the participant (player) become more meaningful and provide a unique platform to promote health education on the topic of mental health. Prevention theory enhances our work as researchers and practitioners in many ways. Theory helps us build the science of prevention by directing our hypotheses and research questions and informs the selection of appropriate populations to study. “Ultimately, theories of prevention determine intervention approaches including individual treatments, models of health care delivery, public health practice, and health policy” (Shumaker, Ockene, & Riekert, 2009, p. 4)

Audiology Students’ Perception of Hybrid Simulation Experiences: Qualitative Evaluation of Debriefing Sessions

Simulation-based research is still new in the audiology field and requires more research to better understand students’ perspectives on standardized patients/parents (SPs) and manikins use. There is also limited research about debriefing practices in audiology. This qualitative study used a baby simulator and SPs to evaluate audiology students’ reflection during three debriefing sessions conducted at the University of Arkansas for Medical Science (UAMS) Simulation Center. Seventeen Doctor of Audiology (AuD) students participated in the simulation event, and the data were collected using the transcripts of videotaped debriefing sessions. The qualitative content analysis of the transcripts revealed eight sub-themes: support, compassion, respect, teamwork, limited academic knowledge and practice, insufficient communication skills, low self-confidence, and undesirable emotional reactions. These items, in turn, fell under two main themes of Qualification and Lack of Preparation. Both main themes were included in one core category named Professional Dispositions and Competencies. Study findings indicated that audiology students demonstrated both promising professional dispositions and competencies as well as characteristics that may hinder students from developing their professional abilities. Thus, audiology programs will benefit from simulation use, including debriefing sessions, to emphasize professional efficiency

Didactical use of a remote lab: a qualitative reflection of a teacher

This work describes the teacher reflections about a didactical implementation using a remote laboratory and their impact on his practice. These reflections are analyzed from three different perspectives: how the literature review influenced the design of the didactical implementation (namely the first); how his reflection upon his practice influenced its modifications; how his research activity impacted and affected his teaching practices in the subsequent implementations and guided the modifications made. The remote lab was introduced in a Physics Course in an Engineering degree and was intended to be a learning space where students had the opportunity to practice before the lab class, supporting the development of experimental competences, fundamental in an engineer profile. After the first implementation in 2016/17 academic year it has undergone two subsequent editions with adjustments and modifications. Some features previously reported in literature such as: teacher’s experience with VISIR, the importance of an introductory activity and defining VISIR tasks objectives, were corroborated by the teacher during his practice and research. Others, such as the difficulty some students have in understanding the difference between simulation and remote labs appeared directly from his practice and were pursued in his research in order to deeply understand its implications

Shared learning from national to international contexts: A Research and Innovation Collaboration to Enhance Education for Patient Safety

Background: Patient safety is key for healthcare across the world and education is critical in improving practice. We drew on existing links to develop the Shared LearnIng from Practice to improve Patient Safety (SLIPPS) group. The group incorporates expertise in education, research, healthcare, healthcare organisation and computing from Norway, Spain, Italy, the UK and Finland. In 2016 we received co-funding from the Erasmus þ programme of the European Union for a 3-year project. Aim: SLIPPS aims to develop a tool to gather learning events related to patient safety from students in each country, and to use these both for further research to understand practice, and to develop educational activities (virtual seminars, simulation scenarios and a game premise). Study outline: The SLIPPS project is well underway. It is underpinned by three main theoretical bodies of work: the notion of diverse knowledge contexts existing in academia, practice and at an organisational level; the theory of reflective practice; and experiential learning theory. The project is based on recognition of the unique position of students as they navigate between contexts, experience and reflect on important learning events related to patient safety. To date, we have undertaken the development of the SLIPPS Learning Event Recording Tool (SLERT) and have begun to gather event descriptions and reflections. Conclusions: Key to the ongoing success of SLIPPS are relationships and reciprocal openness to view things from diverse perspectives and cultures

Point of view filming and the elicitation interview

Face-to-face interviews are a fundamental research tool in qualitative research. Whilst this form of data collection can provide many valuable insights, it can often fall short of providing a complete picture of a research subject’s experiences. Point of view (PoV) interviewing is an elicitation technique used in the social sciences as a means of enriching data obtained from research interviews. Recording research subjects’ first person perspectives, for example by wearing digital video glasses, can afford deeper insights into their experiences. PoV interviewing can promote making visible the unverbalizable and does not rely as much on memory as the traditional interview. The use of such relatively inexpensive technology is gaining interest in health profession educational research and pedagogy, such as dynamic simulation-based learning and research activities. In this interview, Dr Gerry Gormley (a medical education researcher) talks to Dr Jonathan Skinner (an anthropologist with an interest in PoV interviewing), exploring some of the many crossover implications with PoV interviewing for medical education research and practice

A Video of Myself Helps Me Learn : A Scoping Review of the Evidence of Video-Making for Situated Learning

Nursing, dance and studio-based arts, engineering, and athletic therapy are viewed as practice-oriented professions in which the teaching and situated learning of practical skills are central. In order to succeed, students must perform a series of performance-based assessments, which seemingly require an “able” body to enact complex tasks in situated and/or simulation-based contexts (for example, “safe nursing practice”). Our interdisciplinary research seeks to intervene within the culture of professional learning by investigating what we know about the use of smartphone video recording for situated, practice-based learning, and for supporting interactive video-based assessment as a means of accommodation and extending access for students, including students with performance anxiety, mature students, ESL learners, students with disabilities, and students in remote communities. In this paper we employ a scoping review methodology to present our findings related to students’ and instructors’ perspectives on the use of smartphone video to demonstrate and document practical knowledge and practice-oriented competencies across fields in the arts and sciences. We also examine broader research, as well as the ethical and design implications for the development of our technology-based toolbox project – an online resource created to advance pedagogies deploying smartphones as tools for practical skills acquisition - and for accommodation - within multidisciplinary practical learning environments