Rapid Cycle Deliberate Practice as an Operationalization of Deliberate Practice in Healthcare Simulation: A Scoping Review

Deliberate Practice (DP) is a well-established framework for skill acquisition, characterized by goal-directed practice, immediate feedback, focused repetition, and progressive refinement. In healthcare simulation, Rapid Cycle Deliberate Practice (RCDP) has emerged as a structured instructional approach that seeks to operationalize DP principles through short simulation cycles, frequent pauses for directive micro-debriefing, and immediate repetition of performance. Despite increasing adoption of RCDP across a wide range of simulation contexts, the existing literature demonstrates substantial heterogeneity in how RCDP is defined and implemented. Reported variations include differences in cycle structure, progression rules, mastery criteria, instructor behaviors, feedback timing, and training dose. This variability limits reproducibility, complicates comparisons across studies, and creates uncertainty regarding what constitutes RCDP versus other DP-informed instructional designs. The purpose of this scoping review is to systematically map the existing literature on RCDP in healthcare simulation, using Deliberate Practice as a conceptual framework. Specifically, this review aims to identify how core DP elements are operationalized within RCDP interventions, describe implementation characteristics, summarize reported educational outcomes, and identify gaps in reporting and standardization. This scoping review will be conducted in accordance with the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology for scoping reviews and reported following the PRISMA-ScR guidelines. The results are expected to provide a comprehensive overview of current RCDP practices, clarify conceptual and implementation variability, and inform future research, instructional design, and reporting standards in simulation-based education.