Teaching health assessment symptomatology using a flipped classroom combined with scenario simulation

Abstract

Background: Symptom assessment is difficult to understand and be retained by second-year bachelor’s nursing students. A flipped classroom combined with scenario simulation (FCSS) is a new potential teaching model. This study compares the teaching effect and knowledge retention between the FCSS approach and the traditional flipped classroom (FC) approach. Method: Second-year bachelor’s nursing students were selected as research participants. One group (n = 59) adopted an FCSS approach, whereas the other group (n = 68) adopted an FC approach. We evaluated student mastery and retention of knowledge through two tests: one before the next class, the other after 2 months. Results: Regarding knowledge mastery, the FC group had a higher score than the FCSS group both in total score (66.29 ± 15.27 versus 59.42 ± 10.76) and group learning score (46.06 ± 13.25 versus 38.47 ± 8.22) in the first test (p < .05). The retention of knowledge in the FCSS group was better than that in the FC group (p < .001), represented by the variable of test score difference before and after 2 months. Conclusion: When teaching symptomatology, FCSS is helpful to enhance self-learning and improve student long-term memory. [J Nurs Educ. 2020;59(8):448-452.]