Practice-based learning and its outcomes in nursing student's education

Along the rapid changes and developments of knowledge، technology، and the increasing customers’ awareness of health care systems، today clinical settings and practice-based learning has become more important. Thus، changing students’ educational approaches and empowering them with self-navigated approaches are essential. The present study aimed at surveying practice-based learning and its outcomes on nursing students’ education. This is a review article which focuses on original and research articles found via manual and digital searches in libraries and databases including Medline، PubMed، Proquest، SID، Irandoc، and a number of Persian texts published in 1999-2012. Keywords including practice-based learning، nursing education، clinical learning، nursing students، clinical learning، and clinical settings were used. 30 articles were finally selected out of more than 250 articles. Results indicate that practice-based learning in nursing education emphasizes the role and importance of clinical settings and nursing trainers. The outcomes of this method present appropriate guidelines to fill the gap between theoretical education and clinical training، promote life-long learning، self-directedness، self-actualization، and acquisition of new knowledge gained from experiences in various professional positions. Practice-based learning is compatible with modern philosophy of nursing education. It is، thus، recommended that nursing education administrators promote clinical settings while tending to design and expound nursing students’ educational programs in line with this approach.