The purpose of this quasi-experimental study is to examine the impact of a simulated hospital experience on entry-level occupational therapy students’ confidence and satisfaction.

At the start of this research study, there were no known research articles concerning simulated experiences as a part of education using occupational therapy students. A study by Ohtake, Lasarus, Schillo and Rosen found an increase in physical therapy students’ levels of confidence following a simulated patient experience and satisfaction with the experience.

This study used a one-group, pretest–posttest, quasi-experimental design modeled after a previously conducted experiment. A presimulation and postsimulation survey was given to each participant in the beginning and at the end of the study. The surveys were used to measure students’ satisfaction and level of confidence as a result of the simulation experience.

This research study entailed 26 entry-level doctoral occupational therapy students from a Midwestern university participating in a simulated hospital experience and providing completed data for this study. Pre- and postsimulation surveys were used to gather demographic information and participants’ confidence ratings. Posttest surveys gathered data about confidence, satisfaction, and additional comments. Participants’ demographic information was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Data analysis was completed using descriptive statistics for pretest confidence as well as posttest confidence and satisfaction scores. One-way analysis of variance was used to answer the research question.

Qualitative data were coded and analyzed using appropriate statistics with the categories that were discovered from within the data.

Overall, participants reported they were satisfied with the simulated hospital experience. A statistically significant increase in confidence scores was found. Consistent themes were noted throughout the results that were attained from the participants’ additional comments. These themes were the following: Hands-on activities, working in small groups, and exposure to real-life situations were the most helpful aspects to their learning. Additionally, participants felt that having more time and more hands-on experiences would better facilitate their learning.

This study supports our research hypothesis that entry-level 1st-yr occupational therapy students would experience increased satisfaction and confidence scores after exposure to a simulated experience. This study has potential to influence curriculum planning and funding in occupational therapy. Occupational therapy programs may consider incorporating simulated learning experiences into their curriculums should more research show these experiences to improve learning outcomes. More research is needed, using larger samples and random assignment of participants to research and control groups, to validate these research findings.

In addition, new research may want to analyze data with more complex data analysis techniques to determine how prior experience and pretest confidence scores may interact with this experience to reach final confidence and satisfaction scores.