Viewpoints of Nursing Students and Faculties about Clinical Performance Assessment Using Programmatic Approach

Introduction: Clinical assessment in nursing education is essential because of variety of objectives and complexity of clinical performance. Programmatic approach is an opportunity for comprehensive and multidimensional assessment. Opinions of stakeholders have an effect on application and effectiveness of a program. Thus, the aim of this study was evaluation of nursing students’ and faculties’ viewpoints about using programmatic approach in assessment. Methods: In this descriptive-analytic study, a census sample of 38 internship nursing students and 8 faculties in critical care rotation have participated. Clinical assessment of students was designed based on a programmatic approach and applied for one educational semester. Then, the viewpoints of faculties and students about this assessment method and its strengths and weaknesses were collected by a questionnaire. A visual analog scale in 0-10 measure was used to evaluate satisfaction of subjects. The data were analyzed using descriptive indices and t (paired and independent) tests. Results: The mean score of faculties and students’ satisfaction with programmatic assessment was 8.70±1.82 and 7.66±1.50, respectively. Totally, 87.5% of faculties and 97.3% of students were agreed with this method for students’ clinical performance assessment. According to attitudes of both groups, the strengths of this method were objectivity, impartiality, feedback provision, accurate coverage of educational objectives and specificity. 87.5% of faculties and 89.47% of students believed programmatic approach in assessment has a positive educational impact. Conclusion: The findings showed the majority of nursing students and faculties are satisfied with clinical assessment using programmatic approach and that is acceptable because of its objectivity, feedback provision, specificity, complete coverage of educational objectives and positive educational impact. Therefore, extensive application of this method in other clinical settings can be considered.