Our research group

The Research group for Advanced Performance and Simulation (RAPS-NORD) conduct cross-disciplinary research on the use of simulation methodology in education and training of students and professionals. The research group is closely linked to, and dependent upon, the Center for Advanced Performance and Simulation (CAPS-NORD) which offers simulation training to students and professionals within health, music and leadership. More information about the Center for Advanced Performance and Simulation is also to be found further down this presentation.

Jonas Vaag (jonas.vaag@nord.no) is an associate professor in psychology and leader of the research group. He is also a trained and licenced clinical psychologist.

The simulation lab

The simulation lab is currently located at campus Levanger of Nord University. In the future, there will also be simulation labs located at all campuses that provide simulation training to healthcare professionals at Nord University. The staff of the simulation lab, and the research group, collaborates closely with other simulation labs within the university (like the NORDLab, which provide training in risk management). At the present moment, we run three different labs.

The health simulation lab

This lab is primarily serving the nursing education programme (bachelor level), and provide simulation training for students. The lab is also used for training of medical students, nurses, physicians and other healthcare professionals. The two high-fidelity lab rooms are equipped with advanced SimMan manikins, and the rooms are built in accordance to what the students meet in clinical practice at the local hospitals. Video and audio technology is used to stream every simulation to adjacent classrooms, where students is briefed and debriefed on clinical cases, clinical actions, skills and collaborative practice in the simulation room.

In addition to the high-fidelity rooms, the simulation lab also provide 5 low-fidelity training rooms, as well as a dedicated skill station for practicing CPR.

The concert simulation lab

This lab is primarily serving the music teacher students of Nord University. Our research group has previously conducted several projects concering the health and work environment for musicians. One of the main messages from these projects where the existent gap between rehearsal and concert often result in a lack of mastery, self-efficacy and an increase of performance stress among the musicians. In order to close this gap, we have followed the excellent work of the Royal College of Music in London and developed a concert simulation lab. In this lab, which consist of a backstage and a virtual concert scene, the students are briefed and debriefed backstage and does their practical training in front of a virtual audience.

The leadership lab

The leadership lab uses the same facilities as the health simulation lab. In this lab, we use VR-technology in order to train leaders and students, participating in a master degree in leadership, in communication skills and perspective taking. We use role-play and 360 degree video recording in order to provide instant feedback to the leaders and students with the use of VR-equipment. In briefing and debriefing, we use the same methodology as we do with the healthcare students. This work draws upon the previous work done by our team on Collective Leadership Learning (CLL) (Rennemo & Vaag, 2018).

Cross-disciplinary collaboration

In order to provide simulation training to different professions and develop pedagogigal procedures, technology and content of our simulation training, we have put together a cross-diciplinary research group. Our group consists of members from leadership education, music education, health education, and educators within TV, movie and virtual effects.

Some of our recent projects

Interprofessional collaborative learning

The healthcare of today requires all professions to work in collaborative teams to achieve the best treatment and care for patients. The treatment is becoming more advanced and specialised. The ageing population will suffer from more comorbidity and have more complexed needs. Healthcare workers need to know about each other’s professional roles and collaborate in the healthcare team to achieve good communication, safe and effective care.

At the simulation lab, medical- and nursing students work together in caring for patients through high fidelity simulation. The project aims to explore the learning outcome and the attitude towards interprofessional teamwork in caring for various patients’ cases.

High-fidelity leadership simulation in VR

The group currently conduct research on the use of simulation, combined with the use of 360 degree videos, in order to train communication skills and perspective taking among experienced leaders. We combine this with the use of what we call «Collective Leadership Learning» (CLL), which is a methodology that makes use of the leaders previous base of experience in order to design simulation scenarios and in the post-simulation reflective debrief.

Publication of relevance:

Rennemo, Ø., & Vaag, J.R. (2018). Collective Leadership Learning (CLL) – Leader reflections on learning during higher‑level, experience-based leadership education. Scandinavian Psychologist.

High-fidelity concert simulation

We conduct research on concert simulation, using the concert simulation lab to investigate the feasibility and efficacy of using a concert simulation for increased self-efficacy as a musical performer. We are currently writing up two articles on this matter, and do also collaborate nationally and internationally in order to conduct a large-scale investigation.

Push the button below in order to see our publications of relevance for this work: