Research has shown that nursing students can learn clinical reasoning
skills by engaging in simulation games. However, there has been no
research regarding the effects of simulation games on clinical reasoning
skills when nursing students also engage in virtual reality
simulations. Furthermore, by engaging in simulation games, neither game
metrics nor their impact on students' self-evaluated clinical reasoning
skills has been studied. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the
effects of these two kinds of simulation games using a one-group
pretest-posttest design. Forty nursing students self-evaluated their
clinical reasoning skills in three phases using the Clinical Reasoning
Skills scale. Furthermore, the game metrics of the simulation games were
analyzed, and the results clearly showed that students' self-evaluated
clinical reasoning skills were systematically improved. There was a
systematic association between better playing scores and better
self-evaluated clinical reasoning skills in playing both kinds of
simulation games. Moreover, students engaged more time in the virtual
reality simulation than the computer-based simulation game. Overall, the
results suggest that the use of a combination of both kinds of
simulation games is an effective way for nursing students to learn
clinical reasoning skills.