Actual and Ideal Support and Supervision in Clinical Education Settings: Comparing the Perspectives of Nursing Students and Clinical Instructors

Nursing is a practical profession in which clinical training is the basic medical training program. Clinical training is so important that it is considered as the core of professional education. The aim of the present study was to compare the perceptions of nursing students and clinical instructors about the actual and ideal support and supervision in a clinical setting. 

In this descriptive-analytic study, 130 nursing students and 30 clinical instructors of Gonabad Medical Science University are reviewed via census method. The data collection instrument includes the “Perception of Extent of Support and Supervision Survey” questionnaire which is designed in both real and expected status. The findings were analyzed using SPSS20 software and descriptive and analytical statistics.

There is a significant difference between the actual and ideal perception of nursing students and clinical instructors in the support and supervision domains, so in the support domain, the expectation of nursing students was not met by clinical instructors, and in the supervision domain, the actual degree of supervision is greater than the students' expectation. However, clinical instructors have believed that the ideal support and supervision of students is provided by the clinical instructor.

The results indicate that there is a gap in the view of clinical instructors and nursing students towards the actual and ideal support and supervision of students in clinical education environments. This gap may have negative effects on the clinical learning of students.