**1. Introduction**

Assessment is a crucial element of any effective teaching and learning strategy [1] at all stages of education, particularly in higher education in the Human and Health Sciences. Within teaching and learning in the Health Sciences, physical examination skills are essential to the practice of clinical care, and students traditionally study and practice their physical skills in person in a particular setting, because this involves considerable time spent on hands-on learning [2]. The same notion is shared with Nursing Education, whereby student nurse educators practice their teaching skills and are assessed on those skills.

In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the highly infectious and deadly COVID-19 disease to be a worldwide pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic, first confirmed in December 2019, is defined as the worldwide spread of a disease caused by a new coronavirus labelled SARS-CoV-2 [3]. In this review, pandemic refers to the worldwide spread of that disease which forced a sudden change and transition from physical assessment strategies to online or virtual strategies. The majority of higher education institutions including health profession educators (HPEs) across the world had to transition from physical teaching and learning strategies to online strategies for emergency remote learning [4]. Continued pandemic restrictions imposed on face-to-face learning resulted in a decision to permanently transition a graduate nursing education advanced assessment course from a hybrid one to online learning [5–9]. With online learning, learning takes

**Citation:** Matlhaba, K.L. Virtual Practical Examination for Student Nurse Educators in Health Sciences Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Narrative Review. *Nurs. Rep.* **2023**, *13*, 214–229. https:// doi.org/10.3390/nursrep13010021

Academic Editors: Richard Gray and Sonia Udod

Received: 10 December 2022 Revised: 2 February 2023 Accepted: 3 February 2023 Published: 8 February 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

place partially or entirely over the Internet, making it an ideal course delivery model for adult learners wishing to develop new skills and competencies [10]. It is noticeable that online learning has become one of the most popular educational alternatives to meet the demands of today's global knowledge economy [11].
