Designing Effective Post-Simulator Training Session Feedback Reports

Abstract: The effectiveness of simulation training is greatly dependent on providing effective high-quality post-simulation session feedback. In-person feedback is currently considered the gold standard for providing post-simulation session feedback but as simulation training becomes increasingly common, the need to provide equally as effective feedback in a standardized and automatic way increases. This research examines the literature regarding effective information structuring, cognitive design principles, effective feedback practice, and gamification, and applies it to an automated post-simulation session feedback report. The increased effectiveness of the science-based feedback report design is successfully demonstrated in a questionnaire study. By comparing the science-based feedback report design with its original design in an interview study, further beneficial features of effective feedback reports not highlighted in the literature can be extracted. The main results of this research display qualities of feedback report designs that increase and support understandability, learning, and motivation for the readers. The results are demonstrated as a general semantic model called the Effective Feedback Report model (EFR-model) which can be applied to any existing feedback report.