Clinical Simulation Innovations in Nursing Education
A special issue of Nursing Reports (ISSN 2039-4403).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2027 | Viewed by 18
Special Issue Editors
Interests: simulation; acute medical surgical nursing; critical care
Interests: clinical simulation; clinical decision making; patient and staff experience; health workforce research; critical care and patient safety; digital literacy and readiness; mixed methods and experimental research design
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Clinical simulation education is a core component of contemporary nursing preparation and practice. It provides structured opportunities for nurses and nursing students to develop essential clinical knowledge and skills, clinical reasoning, decision‑making, and the professional behaviours required for safe and effective patient care. As healthcare systems and clinical environments grow in complexity, and placement capacity challenges continue, clinical simulation education offers authentic, contextualised practice‑focused experiences that enable professional development in patient care rehearsal, the management of clinical deterioration, interprofessional collaboration, and reflection on clinical judgement within safe and supportive learning environments.
Advances in technology and artificial intelligence have broadened the range of available clinical simulation modalities, including in‑situ simulation, hybrid approaches, and AI‑supported applications such as adaptive virtual patients and immersive VR/AR scenarios with real-time decision-making, clinical reasoning, and reflective learning support. (Examples include the use of AI-enabled conversational virtual patients and AI chatbots that provide formative feedback or facilitate reflective dialogue during or following simulated scenarios.) When thoughtfully designed and implemented, these modalities create scalable, flexible, and authentic learning opportunities for students and nurses to prepare for or update contemporary clinical practice. These technologies also rely on students and nurses having strong foundations in digital literacy and digital professionalism, which underpin safe, confident, and ethical engagement with AI-enhanced simulation tools. Developing these competencies is increasingly important for modern nursing practice as digital, data-driven, and AI-generated care environments and technologies become the norm.
As simulation becomes more deeply embedded across nursing programmes and practice settings, scholarly work has increasingly focused on its impact on clinical performance, patient safety, professional identity formation and the transition to practice. This Special Issue invites research, innovation, and evaluative studies in clinical simulation education in nursing. We aim to showcase work demonstrating its contribution to clinical competence, clinical reasoning, and preparedness for practice across diverse healthcare contexts. We welcome contributions from both student-focused and workforce-focused simulation contexts, recognising that simulation plays an essential role in supporting the learning and development needs of the entire nursing profession.
Dr. Sandra J. Goldsworthy
Dr. Naim Abdulmohdi
Dr. Sue Baron
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Nursing Reports is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- clinical simulation
- nursing students
- nursing education
- nursing practice
- innovation
- practice readiness
- clinical competence
- clinical reasoning
- confidence
- patient safety
- transition to practice
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