Nursing student's experiences and perspectives on the clinical characteristics of instructor's in clinical evaluation

During clinical education, students are evaluated to ensure their success in achieving clinical learning’s outcomes. Evaluation as an important role of nurse instructors brings challenges to both students and instructors. Students’ perspectives have a crucial importance in improving the quality of the evaluation process in the educational system. The purpose of this study was to determine nursing students` experiences and perspectives on the clinical characteristics of instructors` in clinical evaluation. A qualitative design using a content analysis approach was used to gather and analyze data. A purposive sampling method was utilized to choose 40 nursing students from schools of nursing and midwifery in Tehran, Iran. Six semi-structured focus group interviews were held with the students to collect data. Three themes and seven subthemes were developed during data analysis: “professional issues” (competency, presence and engagement, skill of feedback and evaluation), “personal characteristics” (interest, respect and support), evaluation necessities (justice, practical evaluation). Evaluation of nursing students` in clinical practice is one of the most important and challenging roles of nurse instructors. Attending to students’ perspectives can help remove barriers to the implementation of a high quality evaluation process.