Development and evaluation of virtual reality simulation education based on coronavirus disease 2019 scenario for nursing students: A pilot study

AIM: This research is designed to establish and evaluate the effectiveness of a virtual reality simulation program using COVID‐19 scenario for nursing students. DESIGN: This is a quasi‐experimental study using a non‐equivalent control group pre‐test‐posttest design. METHODS: The participants were 65 students in their fourth year in nursing college. The knowledge about communicable infectious diseases in the respiratory system, self‐efficacy, clinical reasoning capacity and learning satisfaction was evaluated. RESULTS: The experimental group showed a significantly higher learning satisfaction (t = 3.01, p = .004). Both groups presented statistically significant differences in knowledge on infectious respiratory diseases, self‐efficacy and clinical reasoning between pre‐test and posttest. However, knowledge (t = 0.47, p = .643), self‐efficacy (t = 0.70, p = .944) and clinical reasoning were not different between the groups.