Nursing student's practical skills: self-, peer and teacher evaluation, complementary or contradictory?

Evaluation of the clinical skills of nurses and other healthcare professionals is a challenge. Studies indicate that methods used to evaluate nursing students’ skills are not appropriate to educational aims. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical skills of nursing students by themselves, peers and the clinical teacher in medical and surgical wards of hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences. A cross-sectional design was used to conduct this study. All junior nursing students attending a medical-surgical internship program were chosen. At the end of the internship program, students’ clinical skills were evaluated by themselves, peers and the clinical teacher. Nursing Students’ Clinical Skills’ Form was used for data collection and descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. In the domains of clinical skills, and responsibility - respect, there were significant differences between the clinical teacher, peers, and students’ scores. However, no such a significant difference was reported between the scores of self- and peer evaluation. In the domains of clinical skills and communication, there were no significant differences between all scores. Moreover, in clinical skills and communication domains, a significant correlation was found between peer and self- scores. In responsibility - respect and communication domains, a significant correlation was shown between the scores of self and clinical teacher. In order to improve students’ feelings of responsibility, critical thinking and communication skills, self-learning, and respect to others during the internship program, it is suggested to consider the self-, peer, and clinical teacher’s evaluation as the student’s activity in clinical practice.