Simulation: A complex pedagogical space

Abstract

Simulation is a pedagogy that has been widely used in a number of educational settings (e.g., aviation, transport, social work, nursing education). While it can take numerous forms, it often involves an assortment of high-tech equipment (e.g., flight simulators, manikins) that seek to replicate real settings. Specifically, this paper provides an empirically driven exploration of how simulation laboratories, used in the professional education of nurses, and medical and other health professionals in higher education settings, are practised. Informed by sociomaterial understandings, the paper problematises and disrupts homogeneous understandings of the simulation space as found in much of the health sciences literature. This is done by providing a number of layers ranging from accounts of simulation in literature and empirically driven accounts of simulation in action through to more abstract discussion. The paper is attentive to both the distinct materiality of the spaces involved and the human activities the spaces engender. This dual focus enables the consideration of spatial injustices as well as new directions for the development of simulation pedagogies.