Lights. Camera. Action. Debrief. Designing immersive simulation for novices to promote learning

Simulation-based education is a powerful learning method that prepares healthcare students for clinical practice. For novices with limited clinical experience, it is likely that the complexity of the clinical setting and the scenario of the simulation overwhelms them and prevents them for fully reaching the intended learning goals. Educators must adapt both the learning task and the learning environment to account for the learner’s level. However, the cognitive impacts of these two features on an inexperienced learner remained vastly unexplored, making it more difficult to accurately adapt the simulations to account for the learner’s level. This thesis investigated the effects of task and environmental complexity on novices’ learning experience in simulation in four experimental studies informed by cognitive load theory. The research presented in this thesis contributes to our understanding of effective instructional design of immersive simulation for novices.