The results of this study indicate that while IM injection competency
was higher for students trained using simulation versus those who
did not receive simulation, these differences were not statistically
significant. Though the findings were not significant, this study does
offer some evidence that simulation is an effective teaching strategy for
psychomotor skills. In the current study, the fact that baccalaureate
nursing students who were trained using simulation performed IM
injection at least as well as those students trained using only traditional
teaching strategies indicates that this type of simulation is at least as
effective as standard educational practices for IM injection.
The current focus in health care on patient safety and evidencebased
education requires nurse educators to utilize the most effective
evidence-based teaching strategies when preparing future nurses. This
study, along with relevant nursing education literature (Pauly-O’Neill,
2009; Rutherford-Hemming, 2012), supports that simulation, in
general, is an effective teaching modality for psychomotor skills and has
potential for enhanced skill transfer to the clinical setting. However,
there remains limited empirical evidence to support the efficacy of lowfidelity
simulation compared with traditional teaching strategies, and,
more notably, the transfer of skills learned in simulation to patient care.
Due to this dearth of empirical evidence supporting simulation
in psychomotor skill attainment and skill transference in the nursing
literature, the underpowered findings of the current study, and the call
from the NLN for research to link education and practice (2012), it is
important that future nursing education research efforts explore the
transfer of skills to clinical practice following simulation. Replication
of the current study with a larger sample size, as well as with varied
psychomotor skills, would greatly enrich the body of knowledge in
nursing education and provide the needed support for evidence-based
education using simulation.