SBIR-STTR Award

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is a mobile device healthcare simulation design that engages students in an active learning, pre-class activity. Pre-class assignments are documented to improve student learning but traditional reading meets with poor student compliance. The increasing prevalence of student-owned tablets/smartphones creates a platform to satisfy a demand for engaging, scientifically accurate, mobile simulations distributed as pre-class activities. In Phase I, a tablet/smartphone mobile simulation prototype will be developed to simulate a commercially available, electronic fetal monitor used to teach perinatal monitoring. The Phase I mobile simulation will be derived from previously developed simulation technology documented to improve learning. The Phase I experiment will compare learning outcomes among nursing students using the pre-class mobile simulation with those exposed to traditional reading or no pre-class activity. A randomized, controlled experiment will be conducted in a college of nursing to assess learning. Access to the pre-class mobile simulation is expected to result in improved learning outcomes compared with traditional techniques. The Phase II effort should extend the accessibility and marketability of the concept by developing mobile simulations for allied disciplines and validating that enhanced learning outcomes occur among diverse topics and student populations.

The broader/commercial impact of this SBIR Phase I project is the development, production, and marketing of engaging and scientifically accurate, mobile device simulations that are designed to help students in the health sciences learn difficult medical physiology concepts. Pre-class reading assignments and quizzes can improve student learning, free up class time for active learning activities, and enable instructors to customize their presentations according to student need. Unfortunately, poor student compliance with pre-class reading and the increased faculty time needed to review student assignments prior to a scheduled lecture have combined to limit the use and benefits of pre-class learning. The proposed mobile simulation technology delivers a dynamic and engaging, clinically-focused, pre-class activity combined with a learning analytics method that helps to quantify student knowledge. This technology will be marketed as Android, iOS and Windows smartphone/tablet applications. Because the mobile simulation can be easily adapted to any concept in the biosciences, a successful SBIR effort in obstetrical nursing can be scaled-up to a library of applications in a variety of health related bioscience disciplines including physiology courses in colleges and universities, topic specific course content in colleges of nursing, medicine, and respiratory care, and in general undergraduate and high school biosciences courses.