Serious Games – Developing Emotional Competences for Nursing Students Erasmus Project

Project Title

Serious Games – Developing Emotional Competences for Nursing Students

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The project “Serious Games – Developing Emotional Competencies for Nursing Students” (SG4NS) integrates two major dimensions of today’s active and dynamic teaching-learning process and transversal skills development. In a digital era, it is fundamental to bring new approaches to this process and a part of them is emerging in the field of simulated practice and specifically on the format of serious games. Simultaneously, students today are more digitally open and gifted but at the same time with more difficulties in developing and manage their emotional intelligence competencies. In fact, Emotional Intelligence (EI) determines the ability to recognize, understand, and express emotions and feelings, which is a structuring element in the conception and implementation of nursing care and clinical practice. The project background considers that the ability to manage your own emotions during interactions with patients is a useful skill in any caring environment for nursing students. However, emotional intelligence needs to be more incorporated in nursing education and nursing curricula. This will give nurses a greater understanding of themselves and the way they relate to others, particularly in highly challenging situations. Therefore, the SG4NS project aims to promote emotional intelligence skills and abilities in nursing teachers and students.
Considering teachers role in the field of interpersonal relationships and understanding that for those who really want to make a difference, they are looking for new possibilities to include in their practice new methodologies that will contribute to their work and the quality of teaching and that there is a need for training nursing teachers to qualify both in the pedagogical area and in the specific fields of knowledge in EI, this project provides training sessions for teachers to develop skills for the tasks of understanding and emotional support, monitoring and socio-educational integration of individuals with emotional management, in addition to providing competences for using the Serious Game prototype.
In order to achieve this goal we intend to: Develop a digital interface (Serious Game prototype) for supporting the improvement of emotional intelligence skills in nursing students; Develop an educational course related to EI competencies in undergraduate nursing students signed to be added to the nursing curricula; Provide training sessions for nursing teachers to develop pedagogical skills and knowledge in the EI field; Improve nursing student’s skills and competencies on emotional intelligence management and achieve higher standards of clinical practice through nursing students EI management development.
We intend to mobilize an international team with 20 researchers and experts on several domains: nursing, computer science, digital games, educational science, and social and behavioral sciences. Participants belong to six different Higher Education Institutions inserted in five countries: Portugal (University of Minho – Project leader and Polytechnic Institute of Bragança), Italy (University of Genoa), Spain (University of León), Malta (University of Malta) and Romania (University of Suceava). All of the participants are proficient in their knowledge areas and the number of Ph.D. degrees or equivalent is 100 %.
The project considers active, participative, and transdisciplinary methodologies either inside each institution, either among the international partners. Supported in the literature review we know that more trained nursing students in managing their emotional intelligence predict better care and higher quality patient outcomes. According to this conception, patients, families, and communities cared for these future nurses should be considered the long-term beneficiaries. Considering that the main outputs will be developed originally in the English language and the nursing curricula have significant transversality among European countries, the project and main outputs can be largely adopted. At its conclusion, the project provides not only the original English versions of the Serious Game and Emotional Intelligence Course but also five additional idiom tools: Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Romanian and Maltese.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 207235 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSIDADE DO MINHO & Country: PT

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITA TA MALTA
• UNIVERSIDAD DE LEON
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI GENOVA
• UNIVERSITATEA STEFAN CEL MARE DIN SUCEAVA
• INSTITUTO POLITECNICO DE BRAGANCA