Cognition of Nursing Students and Instructors Based on Eye Movement Analysis in a Situation-based Simulation

Abstract

　This study aimed to identify the cognition of nursing students and instructors based on eye movement analysis in a situation-based simulation. The author provided a nursing assistance task to study participants: nine nursing students and four full-time instructors. Eye movements of the participants performing the task were measured. After the completion of the task the author conducted interviews, and performed quantitative text analysis and eye movement analysis. The analyses showed that participant students and instructors had gazed at a “doll” longer and more frequently than any other objects. The objects with the longest gazing times per area of interests (AOI) were “doll” (students) and “vital sign measuring objects” (instructors). In addition, students were “conscious” of the “facial expression” of a “baby” and “mother,” while instructors looked at the “face” of the “baby” and “thought” that the “mother” was “worried” about the “baby”. It was suggested that students had not realized what they saw until they had confirmed observations in their own line of sight, and also that it is not easy for instructors to verbalize what they themselves were doing in the observations and judgments they made.