Evaluation of the effect of evaluation using the direct observation skills (DOPS) and traditional methods on nursing students' clinical skills learning, 2016

Nursing student's skills evaluation plays a vital role in their professional education, but unfortunately; the quality of many evaluation methods is less than optimal. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the effect of evaluation by using Direct Observation of Clinical Skills (DOPS) and traditional methods on nursing students' clinical skills in 2016. In a quasi-experimental study, 108 senior nursing students were selected and then randomly assigned into two groups of case and control. In the case group was evaluated the skills related to dressing, intra-vein catheterization and suction by DOPS method and in the control group these skills was evaluated by traditional method. Finally, the skills in the two groups were checked by checklist and data were analyzed by using SPSS16 software, descriptive and inferential statistics, Chi-square, independent t-test, Pearson correlation and ANOVA. Independent T-test showed a significant difference in the mean score of dressing, intra-vein catheterization and suction skills between case and control groups (p<0.001). Also the results showed a significant increase in those skills in the third stage of assessment in the case group, which showed a statistically significant in ANOVA (p<0.001). Regarding the improvement of clinical skills in case group's students, it is suggested that the DOPS evaluation method as a high-performance, objective, validated method is used for assessing clinical skills and evaluating the learning of nursing students as well as accepting responsibility professionals in medical sciences.