‘Dancing with emotions’: An Interpretive Descriptive study of facilitators recognition and response to students' emotions during simulation

Simulation facilitators become aware of students' emotional responses through a range of cues. While some facilitators continually move and react to students' emotions, others intentionally hold back from attempting to alter students' emotional responses. Facilitators' beliefs about how to optimise learning mediate how they react to students' emotional states. Beliefs about learning are predominantly shaped by their experiences in both teaching and real-world clinical practice. By understanding the delicate balancing act of students' emotional states and altering the complexity of a simulation, we have the opportunity to inform facilitator training in order to enhance learning.