Clinical evaluation of nursing students

Specialties Educators

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I would be interested in any ideas regarding clinical evaluation tools, how other instructors evaluate nursing students for their performance in a clinical setting?

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Our clinical evaluation tool is dependent on objectives. We evaluate students as "satisfactory," "need improvement" or "unsatisfactory." Each evaluation criterion is explained in detail & reviewed with students at beginning of clinical module.

There are objectives that are considered "critical elements." These criteria carry more weight in the evaluation process because patient outcomes may be adversely affected.

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Specializes in L&D, Antepartum, ER obs. telemetry.

Your institution must have guidelines for evaluating clinical performance. If not, then approach it as you would a patient care plan. What behaviors do you want the students to demonstrate (goals/objectives)? Make these specific and measurable. Document subjective and objective data on each student throughout the semester so you have anecdotal notes which you can refer to.

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Specializes in Gerontological, cardiac, med-surg, peds.

We use pass-fail performance criteria in the following areas: Assessment, Planning, Implementation, Evaluation, and Professional Development. For your convenience, I have attached a modified version of our clinical evaluation tool.

Pass-Fail Clinical Performance Evaluation Tool.doc

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Nurse Educator..

It depends on the institution you are teaching...In our school, we have performance eval.tool, it has categories ( ex. giving meds, handling patients to recovery and handling machines), students are graded in a scale of 10-100.:rolleyes:.Grading students in clinical area depends on your requirements, if they have also nursing processe's and case analysis..Take care...

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Specializes in MedSurg, Nursing Education.

Our school uses a rubric in the clinical setting. A rubric is a table that explains what is needed to obtain full points in one column, then behaviors and outcomes needed to obtain less than full points in the next columns, finally what criteria mean failure in that one category

For instance (since an instructor cannot be with all 10 students at the same time, and since some students are eager and jump into a task without proper understanding) when the students informs the instructor before doing any task - 5 points; when the student informs the instructor in the middle of the task (instructor walks in room and finds task in progress) - 4 points; when the student informs instructor after task is finished - 3 points; when the student does not ever inform instructor that task was done and instructor hears thru the grapevine - 0 points.

We have several categories such as preparedness (all the right tools, and homework done), uniform (worn correctly, clean, no tongue piercing, badge on), presence (absent without notification, late 5 min, late 10 min, late 15 min...), participation (sat at nurses station and gossiped, read chart, got to know patients)

The student is given a copy of the rubric and can plan their activities according to the grade they would be satisfied with. This also backs up the instructor and makes the grading more concrete.

I have found a lot of information on the net on rubrics for educators. We just modified one to fit the criteria for clinicals. We also used a rubric to grade care plans - much simpler: for each element (assessment, diagnosis, plan, implementation, evaluation) we graded 2 points if information was present and appropriate, 1 point if some information present but not complete, and 0 points if critical information was missing or no information at all was given.

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We use a grading system in my program but I am trying to look at tools but it becomes very hard because you cannot watch every single student all the time.I understand what the other person says about student getting points when the instructors see it all. If the instructor has to see the student perform the skill all the time to get all the points then students will wait for the instructor and nurses will not want to wait so students lose the opportunity. I am new and this is looking for ideas.

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Specializes in none.

i have a little tip. i am still a nursing student, granted that i havent completed my schooling yet, but well into the 4th semester.. long story short.. as far as my other peers and i are into school.. clinical instructors do not forget about the basic things.. such as checking accuracy of students taking vitals & shot administration. 2 people i saw were about 2 months from graduating.. both have had about 6-8 months of training. 1 - gave insulin IM and when asked (by a peer/friend in a non-threatening manner) replied yes that is the way i always do it.. its the correct way and on and on, imagine all the patients this student treated with insulin that really didnt get it properly. the 2nd student.. still cannot take BP accurately. i mean maybe im wrong but even if once you are an LPN/LVN you may have other people taking vitals or what not, and maybe im picky about things.. but these 2 things are very simple and very basic as far as a nursing education.

another thing.. im already struggling on my own, doesnt really help to have a 3 maybe 4 hour class session when you paid for 5 on an entire topic i.e. Peds GU and all the students are hearing are things that happened you the instructors kids about 20-30 years ago. i mean side notes are fine.. but one instructor must've spent 1-2 of those 3-4 hours talking about her family experiences that eventually led to another totally different subject.

one more thing.. another instructor i asked (nicely) about what a certain medical instrument was used for something as simple as a suture remover or whatever and that very well titled nurse said to me.. "well, i know what they used 20 years ago, i have no idea what they use now." i mean if you dont know.. say you'll find out even if you dont want to. this discourages learning from you.

dont get me wrong ive had lots of great teachers, but sometimes it makes you wonder where exactly your 25 thousand goes to in the duration of 1.5 years.

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Specializes in Gerontological, cardiac, med-surg, peds.

Some useful information on this site:

Department of Nursing Clinical

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Specializes in Educator/ICU/ER.

Thanks Vicky!!

We are consolidating our forms on the web for our students and this will help give direction! This is lovely!!

Hope in OKC

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Specializes in Gerontological, cardiac, med-surg, peds.

Glad to be of help and welcome to the site :)

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vicky rn -

great pagers on site. thank you very much!

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