Examining the impact of virtual clinical on prelicensure nursing students' pediatric knowledge

Background: Clinical site closure during a pandemic along with the already limited pediatric clinicalplacements challenged educators to develop virtual pediatric clinical experiences. This paper aims toshare a pediatric virtual clinical innovation and retrospectively evaluate its impact on undergraduatepediatric nursing student knowledge. Method: A quasi-experimental natural design was used to retrospectively evaluate a virtual clinicaleducational innovation at one mid-sized, Midwest university. The first half of a student cohortcompleted traditional face-to-face clinical experiences. Simulation and commercially available productswere used to create a 100% pediatric virtual clinical experience for the other half of a student cohort. Course and standardized exam scores were used to measure student learning across the two groups. Results: Findings suggest virtual clinical, as a replacement for traditional clinical, did not negatively impact students pediatric nursing knowledge. Conclusions: The results of this natural experiment can support future discussions about pediatric nursing clinical education. (C) 2021 Organization for Associate Degree Nursing. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.