Developing Nursing Students’ Practice Readiness with Shadow Health® Digital Clinical Experiences$$^{\textrm{TM}}$$: A Transmodal Analysis

This study applied Transmodal Analysis (TMA), a newly developed quantitative ethnographic approach, to examine whether and how virtual patient simulations can aid in educating undergraduate nursing students with competencies that exemplify practice-ready nurses. Multimodal transcripts capturing patient interactions, exam actions, and documentation were obtained from two students who used Elsevier’s Shadow Health® Digital Clinical Experiences $$^{\textrm{TM}}$$ (DCE) in Fall 2022 and Spring 2023. Patient scenarios were situated in three content areas (Gerontology, Mental Health, and Community Health) and two assignment types (focused exam and contact tracing). In each scenario, similar patterns of engagement were observed for both students as they completed learning activities such as collecting patient data and establishing a caring relationship. These activities—guided by the instructional design of DCE—indicated how students practiced recognizing and analyzing cues, subjective assessment, diagnosing and prioritizing hypotheses, generating solutions, evaluating outcomes, therapeutic communication, and care coordination and management in relation to each patient’s needs and conditions. A statistical difference was observed between competencies practiced while completing focused exam and contact tracing assignments. This study provides evidence for using simulations to facilitate competency-based education in nursing. Additionally, it provides motivation for using Transmodal Analysis combined with Ordered Network Analysis (T/ONA) to advance quantitative ethnography research in health care and health professions education.