Faculty and student perceptions of effective clinical teachers

The following study has been conducted to discover the characteristics of an effective clinical teacher as described by faculty and students in a selected baccalaureate school of nursing. Through determination of these characteristics, clinical teachers can improve their teaching methodology and provide a more effective learning environment for the learner. The identification of these characteristics also has implications for graduate nursing education, as clinical teachers are being prepared in this arena to enter the teaching environment. Administrators should consider utilization of these characteristics for teacher evaluation purposes. Nursing educators must attempt to bridge the gap between what educators and students perceive as characteristics of the effective clinical teacher. The ultimate goal to be achieved from identification of effective clinical teacher characteristics, as determined in this study, is improvement in clinical teaching.     

Analyzing the teaching effectiveness of clinical nursing faculty of full- and part-time generic BSN, LPN-BSN, and RN-BSN nursing students.

Effective clinical teaching has been a focus for scrutiny across the health-care disciplines. Nursing researchers have investigated students' and faculty members' views of effective clinical teaching. Various students (diploma, ADN, BSN) and their respective faculty have been studied, and some investigators have researched opinions of part-time students. No study was available that analyzed effective clinical teaching from the perspectives of students representing various formats of nursing education (basic BSN, RN-BSN, LPN-BSN students) and whether they were full or part time. The purpose of the study was to examine full- and part-time basic BSN, LPN-BSN, and RN-BSN students' ratings of effective clinical teaching behaviors. A stratified sample (n = 198) of baccalaureate nursing students (basic, LPN-BSN, RN-BSN) who represented both full- and part-time attendees was obtained. Students were informed about the study's purpose and asked to complete a demographic questionnaire and two instruments, by Knox and Mogan [Knox, J. E., & Mogan, J. (1985). Important clinical teaching behaviors as perceived by university nursing faculty, students, and graduates. The Journal of Nursing Education , 10, 295-301] and Zimmerman and Westfall [Zimmerman, L., & Westfall, J. (1988). The development and validation of a scale measuring effective clinical teaching behaviors. The Journal of Nursing Education , 27, 274-277], measuring perceptions of effective clinical teaching. Responses to open-ended questions were recorded on one instrument. Data were analyzed using summary and inferential statistics utilizing SPSS version 12.0. Responses to open-ended questions were thematically analyzed. Findings from the study demonstrated that part-time students rated their clinical instructors statistically significantly higher in effective clinical teaching and associated subscales. Type of student (basic BSN, LPN-BSN, RN-BSN) did not affect students' ratings. Type of program format and type of student did not interact to affect ratings at a statistically significant level. Implications for nursing education, administration, and future research are delineated.     

护理本科院校理论教学与临床实践差距的研究

目的探讨护理本科院校理论教学与临床实践的差距。方法采用现象学研究方法,对12名临床护理教师和18名本科护理专业实习学生进行深度访谈。结果导致护理本科院校理论教学与临床实践差距的主要因素有:部分书本知识更新滞后于临床发展;学校部分课程设置与课时安排不合理;学校教学情境与临床实践情境不一致;基础护理教学与临床实际应用的侧重点不同;学校教师与临床教师沟通欠缺等。结论为缩短理论与实践的差距,应发展与临床紧密结合的护理师资队伍,注重培养学生评判性思维和应变能力,优化课程设计,合理安排学生实践。     

护理本科生专业态度及其影响因素的研究

目的探索护理本科生护理专业态度状况及其影响因素.方法采用量性问卷调查研究与非结构访谈相结合方法;运用Arthur的"护理专业自我概念"问卷,调查护理本科学生315名,教师91名.非结构式访谈护理本科学生21名.结果护理本科生专业态度总体分值趋向积极;在学校学习中,护理专业态度呈现积极上升趋势,而在临床学习环境中,学生的专业态度趋向消极(P＜0.05).学生自身特点是形成专业态度核心,不同宗教信仰、学生来源、志愿选择、家庭成员从事护理工作背景等变量分析,对专业态度的影响均无显著差异.结论学校教育是逐步树立积极专业态度过程,以护理为主线课程设置、充分发挥学生主观能动性的良好教学方法、教师积极引导能够促进积极专业态度.在临床学习中,护理认知改变、专业挫折感形成、压力和应激等是使学生产生消极专业态度的原因.     

Learning clinical teaching skills at the baccalaureate level

Nurses returning to work after obtaining their baccalaureate degree in nursing find increased expectations to participate in student and staff clinical education. Often these nurses are not prepared for this role. This paper describes a project that involved final year post-diploma registered nurse students in the clinical teaching of second year basic degree students in a baccalaureate nursing programme. Results of a pilot study to determine if the perceptions of the students involved in the teaching project changed following the experience, show a more positive change in teacher behaviours in these student tutors compared to students doing a traditional clinical experience. Course evaluations indicate the experience increased knowledge and comfort in clinical teaching and point to positive changes in the perceptions of behaviours conducive to clinical teaching.     

对临床教师有效教学行为的调查

目的 :了解护理临床带教老师和本科学生对临床教学行为的认知。方法 :选择整群抽样 ,采用自设调查表对北京和天津地区四所三级甲等教学医院承担本科生临床带教工作的临床教师以及本科学生进行了问卷调查和部分访谈。结果 :教师和学生都认为“护理能力”行为是临床教师最重要的行为特征 ,其次是“教学能力”行为和“评价”行为。国内教师和学生对临床教师的“教学能力”行为重要性认识与国外相比仍有差异。结论 :国内师生对临床教师的“教学能力”行为重要性认识不足 ,师生双方在护理教育理念上与国外教育者、学习者存在一定差距。     

Nursing Clinical Teacher Effectiveness Inventory: a replication study of the characteristics of ''best'' and ''worst'' clinical teachers as perceived by nursing faculty and students

This study determined the characteristics of 'best' and 'worst' clinical teachers as perceived by 63 baccalaureate nursing faculty and 121 BSN students in Ohio. It is a replication of the 1987 study by Knox & Mogan. The Nursing Clinical Teacher Effectiveness Inventory (NCTEI) they developed is a 48-item Likert scale checklist which described discrete teacher characteristics clustered into five subscales or categories: teaching ability, nursing competence, personality traits, interpersonal relationship and evaluation. Respondents are asked to rate their 'best' clinical teacher using the NCTEI and then their 'worst' clinical teacher. Results show that both faculty and students agree, in both Knox & Mogan's sample and this sample, that the 'best' clinical teachers are good role models, enjoy nursing, enjoy teaching and demonstrate clinical skills and judgement. The 'worst' clinical teachers are not good role models. The most critical distinguishing characteristics between the 'best' and the 'worst' clinical teachers are being a good role model and encouraging mutual respect.     

Hours of contact and their relationship to students' evaluations of teaching effectiveness

This study was designed to determine if hours of contact with a teacher influenced a student's perceptions of teaching effectiveness. Three hundred forty-one nursing students used a researcher developed instrument to rate five teachers of nursing on classroom teaching effectiveness, and one of the five teachers on clinical teaching effectiveness. Results indicated that a positive relationship existed between students' ratings of their clinical teacher's teaching effectiveness in the classroom and clinical area. The significant Pearson correlations for the five teachers ranged from .61 to .91 (p = .000). The hypothesis, that increased contact hours with a teacher would have a positive influence on students' evaluations of a teacher, received support. Three of five clinical groups of students gave their clinical instructors significantly higher scores for classroom teaching effectiveness than did other students.     

Nursing students' and clinical educators' perceptions of characteristics of effective clinical educators in an Australian university school of nursing

BACKGROUND: This study is a replication of research undertaken by Mogan and Knox in 1987, which investigated and described characteristics of 'best' and 'worst' clinical educators. They developed and used an instrument known as the Nursing Clinical Teacher Effectiveness Inventory (NCTEI), a 48 item checklist that describes discrete characteristics clustered into five subscales or categories: teaching ability; interpersonal relationships, personality traits, nursing competence and evaluation. The tool has since been used in several countries including Greece, Hong Kong, Israel and North America and is the instrument most frequently used to identify effective clinical teaching characteristics of clinical educators. AIM: The aim of the present study was to administer the NCTEI to undergraduate nursing students and clinical educators in a school of nursing at an Australian university to explore the perceived characteristics of effective clinical educators as rated by students and educators, and the significant differences and commonalities between these perceptions. FINDINGS: Results indicate that the category of Interpersonal Relationships was the most highly valued characteristic rated by both Australian students and clinical educators, and both groups (students and educators) ranked the subset of personality as the lowest amongst five categories. In common with Mogan and Knox, this study found that students who had not been exposed to real clinical situations prior to commencing nursing studies ranked items related to interpersonal relationships more highly than students who had previous nursing experience. Although there were no statistically significant differences in the two groups, students were more concerned with evaluation while clinical educators were more concerned with nursing competence. CONCLUSION: This study is the first research to be reported in Australia, which has simultaneously compared both students' and educators' perceptions and the first to replicate Mogan and Knox's seminal work. Findings point to the need for clinical educators to value interpersonal relationships with students as well as clinical competence.     

Exploring men's perceived educational experiences in a baccalaureate program

Nursing school is the first place that men are likely to experience nursing in the professional sense. This study explored and documented men's perceptions of their experiences in baccalaureate nursing education. Face-to-face audiotaped interviews were conducted with 13 male nursing students who were in their last semester at three baccalaureate nursing programs. Qualitative methods were used to analyze their responses. The findings showed a lack of enjoyment of nursing school, the importance of career opportunities, frustrating communication differences, and the desire for more male nurse educators. Recommendations for future research include obtaining female students' perspectives on these questions, researching male students from different types of programs, and studying male graduate students to discover why so few become educators.     

Age-appropriate health promotion education: roots firmly established in baccalaureate nursing pediatric rotation

The Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice [American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2008, October 8). Retrieved September 11, 2009, from http://www.aacn.nche.edu/Education/pdf/BaccEssentials08.pdf] addresses the importance of health promotion at the individual level across the lifespan to effect optimal population health. This qualitative study explores senior baccalaureate nursing students' perceptions (n = 85) of the teaching and learning experience related to health promotion during their pediatric clinical rotation. Four distinct learning factors of student, client, learning process,?and subject matter emerged. Knowledge was enhanced, and students identified that the format of presentation influenced the quality of participant learning. Students' perception of the importance of patient and family teaching evolved over the course of the semester and highlights the importance of providing students with the tools necessary to be effective teachers and change agents to promote healthy behaviors across the lifespan. Fink's Taxonomy of Significant Learning can be applied to facilitate integrated course design for a pediatric baccalaureate nursing curriculum.     

Relationship of sex role identity to occupational image of female nursing sutdents.

In this study to determine whether a relationship exists between sex role identity and image of nursing, sex role identity was measured by the Mf scale of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the image of nursing was measured by Frank's (1969) Image of Nursing Questionnaire (INQ). In the spring of 1973, the MMPI Mf scale and the INQ were administered to 430 female senior nursing students in two baccalaureate, five associate degree, and five diploma programs in northern Illinois. A secondary purpose of the study was to determine whether identifiable groups, i.e., students who differed in age, type of nursing program, and education and occupation of parents, differed in their image of nursing. Sex role identity had a significant (p less than .001) positive relationship to image of nursing. The student's image of nursing was more in harmony with the image advanced by the profession when the student's sex role identity was more masculine. However, analysis of variance indicated that students with a highly feminine sex role identity had significantly lower total INQ scores and were, therefore, in disharmony with the professional image of nursing. Graduates of associate degree and baccalaureate programs had an image of nursing more in harmony with that advanced by the profession than students who graduated from diploma prgorams. Underlying causes for these findings and implications for nursing were explored.     

Differentiated essential competencies: a view from practice

This article describes the results of strategies to elicit views of practicing nurses by the Texas Board of Nursing regarding competencies expected of new graduate licensed vocational nursing/LPN, associate degree/diploma, and baccalaureate nurses. The implications of these perceptions regarding the competencies expected of new graduates in Texas are considered, with questions posed for future exploration.     

不同教育层次实习护生对临床带教老师有效教学行为评价的研究

目的:了解不同教育层次实习护生对临床带教老师有效教学行为的评价。方法:采用临床护理教师有效教学行为问卷(Nursing Clinical Teacher Effective Inventory,NCTEI)对203名实习护生进行调查。结果:不同教育层次护生对有效教学行为5个方面的评价没有统计学差异,但中专护生更注重临床教师的人际关系行为,大专和本科护生更注重临床教师的评价行为。结论:临床教师应结合护生特点,注意自身临床教学行为,以提高临床教学质量和效果。     

Important clinical teacher behaviours as perceived by university nursing faculty, students and graduates

This study compared the importance of five categories of clinical teacher behaviours as perceived by university nursing faculty, students and practising baccalaureate graduates. A survey tool, developed for this study, contained 47 items; each item describing a clinical teacher behaviour. Participants were asked to rate the importance of each item on a seven-point Likert-type scale. Results showed similar perceptions of the importance of clinical teacher behaviours between the three groups of participants. However, significant differences were found between all groups when the perceptions of students in each of the 4 years of the nursing programme, faculty and graduates were compared. These results indicate a greater variability among students than between students, faculty and practising baccalaureate graduates. The importance of this study lies not only in the perceptions of the three groups and the questions this raises, but also in the conflicting findings between this and other studies.     

Perceptions of Israeli student nurses regarding clinical specialties and factors that influence these perceptions

AIM: This paper reports a study to determine the perceptions of baccalaureate nursing students towards clinical specialties and what factors influenced these perceptions. BACKGROUND: Previous studies have shown that nursing students enter their professional education with preconceived perceptions about the different clinical specialties in nursing. Some investigators have found that factors such as clinical experience influence these perceptions, but others have not. Cultural and social influences, especially among non-western cultures, have rarely been investigated. METHODS: Israeli baccalaureate nursing students were surveyed in their first, third and fourth years of study during the years 1998-2004. They were asked to rank their preferences for clinical areas related to social need, social prestige, level of interest in the clinical area, job choice and what factors influenced their decisions related to job choice. Mean ranks and associations between class and calendar year cohorts were calculated. RESULTS: Critical care was consistently ranked as the highest preference in all perception checklists, followed by emergency, maternity and paediatric nursing. Psychiatric, community and gerontological nursing were consistently found at the bottom of the list. High levels of association were found among students from different class cohorts and calendar years. Life experiences were ranked as the factor that most influenced career choice. CONCLUSION: Nursing students in Israel tend to perceive clinical areas in ways similar to other students around the world. These perceptions are strongly influenced by personal experiences and other personal contacts, most often not nursing instructors. Major changes in the local society seem for the most part to have little impact on these perceptions. Therefore there is a need for international nurse educators and recruiters to develop new, creative strategies to encourage nursing students to pursue careers in areas presently considered less popular.     

A triad of research roles: experiential learning in an undergraduate research course

This article describes an innovative approach to teaching undergraduate research content directly involving students in a faculty research study, and a student research project undertaken in a nursing research course. Junior-level students participated as research subjects in a faculty study focusing on the health perceptions of baccalaureate nursing students, became data collectors in a related student project on the health perceptions of lay people, and became consumers of the research by analyzing the findings and clinical relevance of these studies. This strategy for teaching research assisted students to master undergraduate research content by participatory involvement in several distinct phases of the research process. The project generated considerable interest and served to foster positive attitudes toward nursing research while concurrently increasing students' comfort level with the total process.     

Thinking in nursing education. Part I. A student's experience learning to think

Learning to think critically is a central commitment of nursing education. There is a substantial body of literature describing nursing educators' attempts to define critical thinking (1-3) to differentiate critical thinking from other kinds of thinking (1,4), and to measure students' ability (and changes in ability) to think critically (2,5-7). These efforts were facilitated when the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission (NLNAC) identified critical thinking as an outcome criterion for the accrediation of undergraduate and graduate nursing programs. This change in accreditation led to the proliferation of framework (8,9) and strategies (10,11) for nursing educators to use in demonstrating compliance with this criterion. Describing strategies and frameworks for teaching critical thinking is helpful. However, explicating how teachers teach and students learn critical thinking in actual clinical situations illuminates the contextual aspects of practice that influence learning to think (12). Conventional strategies teachers use to assist students to learn critical thinking include individual and group activities, discussions and interactions between students and teachers, clinical simulations, and problem-solving encounters. Although such strategies are commonly thought to be effective in teaching critical thinking in classroom or laboratory situations, little research has been conducted to evaluate the relationship between specific teaching strategies and students' ability to think critically in specific situations (1). A further limitation of laboratory and classroom strategies is that they need to be supplemented with contextual experiences. Providing students with opportunities to practice critical thinking in actual clinical situations is difficult because the context of care is rapidly changing and schools of nursing continue to allocate limited resources to practice education. This two-year study, which was undertaken to reveal common contemporary approaches to teaching and learning critical thinking in clinical courses, analyzes the lived experiences of 45 students and teachers. Part I describes a typical student's experiences of learning "nurse thinking" in the context of clinical practice. Part II describes a typical teacher's experiences creating opportunities for students to learn and practice critical thinking in a community clinical course.     

护理专业大专学生对临床教师有效教学行为认知的调查研究

目的了解护理专业大专学生对临床教师有效教学行为的认知。方法采用Knox及Mogan设计的临床教师有效教学行为问卷(NCTEI)对191名护理专业二年级大专学生进行调查。结果护理专业大专学生认为,"教学能力"是临床教师最重要的行为特征,"个性特征"重要性相对最低。结论临床教师应根据学生的需求,关注自身教学行为,以提高临床教学质量。