Technology-Supported Guidance Models to Stimulate Nursing Students’ Self-Efficacy in Clinical Practice: A Scoping Review (Preprint)

Abstract

In nursing education, bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical skills is crucial for developing competence in clinical practice. Nursing students encounter challenges in acquiring these essential skills, making self-efficacy a critical component in their professional development. Self-efficacy pertains to individuals' belief in their ability to perform tasks and overcome challenges, with significant implications for clinical skills acquisition and academic success. Previous research has underscored the strong link between nursing students' self-efficacy and their clinical competence. Technology has emerged as a promising tool to enhance self-efficacy by enabling personalized learning experiences and in-depth discussions. However, there is a need for a comprehensive literature review to assess the existing body of knowledge and identify research gaps.

To systematically map and identify gaps in published studies on the use of technology-supported guidance models to stimulate nursing students’ self-efficacy in clinical practice.

This scoping review followed the framework of Arksey and O’Malley and was reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for Scoping Reviews. A systematic, comprehensive literature search was conducted in ERIC, CINAHL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and Web of Science for studies published between January 2011 and April 2023. The reference lists of the included papers were manually searched to identify additional studies. Pairs of authors screened the papers, assessed eligibility, and extracted data. The data were thematically organized.

Eight studies were included, and four thematic groups were identified: (1) technological solutions for learning support; the guidance models employed various types of technological tools and used them in different ways; (2) learning focus in clinical practice; the identified technology-supported guidance models were customized for practical skills or specific knowledge areas that nursing students were expected to achieve; (3) teaching strategies and theoretical approaches for self-efficacy; all the studies incorporated either teaching strategies or theoretical approaches and involved both nurse educators and students in the guidance process to achieve their intervention goals; (4) assessment of self-efficacy and complementary outcomes; diverse instruments were used to measure self-efficacy, and all the studies employed additional instruments to assess the effect of the guidance model.

Various technological solutions were adopted in the guidance models to stimulate the self-efficacy of nursing students in clinical practice, leading to positive findings. Even though the findings were not statistically significant, they highlight the need for further refinement. Nurse educators play a pivotal role in applying learning strategies and theoretical approaches to enhance nursing students’ self-efficacy, but the contributions of nurse preceptors and peers should not be overlooked. Future studies should consider involving users in the intervention process and using validated instruments tailored to the studies’ intervention objectives, ensuring relevance and enabling comparisons across studies.

NA