E-SPARRING
Enabling and supporting the use of simulated persons in teaching and assessment in the health professions, by digital means.
The project is funded by the Foundation for Innovation in Higher Education (Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre) and runs for two years, from April 2026 to March 2028. sp-szenarien.de is one of its results and remains available afterwards as a lasting case database.
What it is about
Simulated persons make it possible to portray conversations and treatment situations realistically in teaching and assessment. Trained actors or specially prepared people take on the role of patients or others involved and play out a scenario authentically. Learners thus acquire, practise and reflect on communicative, practical and social skills in a protected setting — without any risk to patients in real care.
Beyond teaching, simulated persons also matter in assessment. Portraying a case in a standardised way creates comparable and fair conditions for every candidate.
E-SPARRING aims to develop accompanying teaching and learning materials and a case database for several health professions. The pilot takes place in the human medicine programme at Bielefeld University.
Why this project is needed
The same difficulties come up again and again: students are often insufficiently prepared for an encounter with a simulated person, the student perspective stays underrepresented, and teaching staff rarely receive systematic methodological training. Sensitive topics call for particular standards, cases are developed redundantly in many places instead of being shared, and for some programmes the effort of adopting the method is simply too high.
Three building blocks
Pillar I (Säule I)
Training for teaching staff
Qualifying teaching staff for the professional use of simulated persons
Modular courses cover working with simulated persons, feedback and debriefing, simulation-based teaching scenarios, assessment with simulated persons, writing simulation scenarios, role training, quality assurance and specialised simulation. The digital learning modules combine video examples, interactive exercises and checks against the learning objectives. The content can be adapted to disciplines, teaching formats and institutional requirements, and supports lasting professionalisation of teaching staff.
Pillar II (Säule II)
Support for learners
Preparing for and reflecting on an encounter with a simulated person
The learning modules for students prepare them specifically for simulation training and convey what the method can achieve. Focus topics are, for example, feedback and debriefing as well as reflection and self-reflection on an encounter with a simulated person, in teaching and in assessment. The digital learning modules combine video examples, interactive exercises and checks against the learning objectives, and can be adapted to disciplines, teaching formats and institutional requirements.
Pillar III (Säule III)
Case database
A case database usable across professions and institutions. A common interprofessional template, consistent keywording and shared experience make cases reusable, save resources and secure quality in teaching and assessment.
Sustainability and transfer
The materials from Pillars I and II are published as open educational resources under CC BY-SA 4.0 and are free to use. After the project, the case database remains available across Germany at no cost. The structured cases are based on the role script template for simulated persons (RTSP).