Experiences of Nurse Educators Using Virtual Games in Nursing Education: A Qualitative Study

Virtual games developed for educational purposes have an important place in the education of nursing students. This study was designed to investigate the experiences of nurse educators regarding the use of virtual games in nursing education. A descriptive qualitative design was used in this research, which was conducted between June and August 2022. The participants included 18 nurse educators, all of whom were working in the nursing department at several universities in Turkey and selected using purposeful sampling. The data were collected using the Educator Information Form and the Semi-Structured Interview Form. The participants were contacted by e-mail. Participant interviews, which took approximately 30-45 minutes to complete, were conducted online via Zoom. The interviews were recorded with participant approval and then transcribed verbatim. Braun and Clarke's method and MAXQDA 2022 software were used to analyze the data. Five themes were identified: (a) opinions of the nurse educators, (b) feedback received by nurse educators from students, (c) nurse educator experiences, (d) nurse educator suggestions for the use of virtual games, and (e) nurse educator suggestions for virtual game developers. The participants expressed support for using virtual games in nursing education; received both positive and negative related feedback from students; reported positive and negative experiences with these games; made suggestions for gaming methods and dissemination; and offered related planning, professional support, and other recommendations to game developers. The use of games in nursing education should be expanded, training programs should be organized for nurse educators considering game development, and similar studies should be conducted on larger study samples. The findings provide important information to nurse educators who are considering developing virtual games. The experiences of nurse educators regarding the use of virtual games are quite interesting, and the number of nurse educators involved in developing these games is quite low.