Publication: Assessment quality and standards : a perspective on clinical evaluation in nursing education
Date
2000
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Abstract
Many scholars of nursing education have highlighted difficulties related to clinical evaluation arising from the complexity of the clinical environment. Clinical evaluation has been the focus of many work improvement projects as nurse educators struggle with various issues arising from the subjective nature of clinical observation of students' practice and the complex role of clinical instructors as both teacher and assessors. My research on the issues that relate to the assessment of students' clinical performance is aimed at gaining a better understanding of the unique and context-dependent nature of clinical practice situations. An action research approach with two cycles of planning, action, evaluation and reflection were undertaken to investigate the process of clinical evaluation as experienced by nurse-educators in Nanyang Polytechnic. The data collection methods include document review, a questionnaire, self-reflection of nurse educators and focus group discussions during the clinical review workshops.<br><br>In the first cycle of this action research, a model developed by Townsend (1994) was used for organizing clinical teaching and learning. In the second cycle, findings revealed the overwhelming reasons for a comparative lack of effectiveness. The main problem faced in assessing student' clinical performance are the lack of time due to the relatively short clinical placement and high student-educator ratio. The respondents also expressed problems with rater subjectivity, reliability and validity of the assessment tool. The need for the ongoing work on the improvement of assessment quality and standards in clinical education was recommended.