The challenges of clinical evaluation and the approaches to improve it from the nursing student's perspective: A qualitative study

In learning-teaching process, students are evaluated in terms of achieving the expected outcomes. Students’ perspective, as one of the main participants in learning- teaching process, is a key factor in improving the process. This study has been carried out with the aim of revealing the challenges of clinical evaluation and the approaches to improve it from the perspective of nursing students.
This descriptive study was carried out with a qualitative approach in 2015. The participants were 20 B.A students from the Nursing faculty of Isfahan. Purposive sampling was conducted until data saturation. Method of data collection was individual interview. Data were analyzed by the conventional content analysis.
2 Main categories and 8 sub-categories representing student's experiences of the clinical evaluation were extracted from the interviews. The main categories included the “inefficient clinical evaluation including sub-categories: the significance of Summative evaluations, Inattention to the practical skills of students, Inconsistent evaluation criteria, Poor performance of clinical instructor” and the category of “Comprehensive clinical evaluation including sub-categories: Coordinated evaluation protocol, Evaluation based on training, Analysis of the clinical setting and indirect evaluation”.
Challenges expressed by participants including clinical instructor’s inattention to the students’ practical skills and the absence of clear and coordinated criteria in the clinical evaluation program raises the need to reconsider, if necessary to revise, the current process evaluation. Strategies provided by the students can be used to improve the current process evaluation.