This paper seeks to develop an understanding of the constraints of effective evaluation, and develop effective evaluation programs in a clinical placement setting. In pursuit of the objectives of the paper, the paper shall draw from different personal communications and scholarly sources in answering three questions. The first question shall seek to determine whether educators should know their students’ strengths and weaknesses prior to beginning a new clinical course. In addition, the question shall seek to determine how much information should be known and whether such information should be shared among the faculty. In the second question, the paper shall seek to identify an issue encountered in evaluating students in clinical practice and an alternative approach that might be used to address the issue identified. In the last section, the paper shall analyze a case study based on the issue of conflict between educator and a student who fails to meet the objective and places blame on the educator. In so doing, the case analysis shall seek to understand the steps that can be taken to avoid the issue at hand. Effective evaluation of students in clinical placement requires the educator or evaluator to understand the intrinsic learning capability of the student in order to develop an effective learning and evaluation environment. The development of a structured practice-based learning environment focuses on the capabilities of the student. In so doing, the educator is able to confine the tasks of the program within the boundaries of the learning objectives and hence result in the addressing the learning needs of the student, and the evaluation needs of the educator.
Question 1: Knowledge of Student’s Strength and Weaknesses
In this first section, the paper answers the following question: Should faculty know about students’ strengths and weaknesses in clinical practice prior to beginning a new clinical course? How much information, if any, should be shared among faculty? The objective of this section shall be to understand the importance of knowing the learning styles of students before a clinical course and the strengths and weaknesses of the student.
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Different individuals have different learning styles. The identification of a student’s learning style is prudent because the educator is able to develop a focused learning environment within which the program’s objectives can be more effectively achieved (Mikkonen, Elo, Kuivila, Tuomikoski, & Kääriäinen, 2016). Additionally, in understanding the learning style of the student, the educator is able to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the student (Kranzler, Floyd, Benson, Zaboski, & Thibodaux, 2016). This helps in developing objectives that shall capitalize on the strengths while eliminating, as far as possible, the weaknesses of the student. Therefore, it is important for an educator to know about the strengths and weaknesses of the student prior to beginning a new clinical course.
Such information, on the strengths and weaknesses of the student should be shared among the faculty. The learning environment does not only represent education in one particular course. The development of skills is based on the social learning theory (Motta, 2016). As inferred by the theory, an individual’s learning capabilities is based on the interaction with the social environment. Based on this, the learning abilities of the student are not only based on the specific program but encompass the entire learning environment (Mikkonen, Elo, Kuivila, Tuomikoski, & Kääriäinen, 2016). In sharing information on the student’s learning strengths and weaknesses, the entire faculty would be able to structure the interaction environment of the student in such a way as is most effective to enable the student to achieve the objectives most effectively. Therefore, information on the student’s strengths and weaknesses should be shared with other members of the faculty.
Having determined the prudency of sharing the information, it now serves to understand what information should be shared. The information that should be shared with the faculty should include; the psychological information, cognitive information, the objectives of the student, and the learning style of the student (Kranzler, Floyd, Benson, Zaboski, & Thibodaux, 2016). The learning environment encompasses, objectives, capabilities, barriers to effective learning, and effective processes of learning (Mikkonen, Elo, Kuivila, Tuomikoski, & Kääriäinen, 2016). In understanding all the aspects of the learning environment, the faculty shall be able to more effectively interact with the student and hence provide the basic resources that the student would require in order to capitalize on their individual capabilities in order to minimize the barriers of their learning process and achieve the predetermined objectives. Therefore, in designing the informational needs of the faculty in reference to the student, the amount and nature of the information would be all information which would help in the designing stage of the learning environment including; objectives, psychological and cognitive capabilities, learning styles, and inhibiting factors to effective learning.
Question 2: Issues in Evaluating Students in Clinical Practice
The questions that shall be addressed in this section are; what issue is identifiable in evaluating students in clinical practice or in your own education; how is it handled; and what other approach might have been used?
Clinical performance evaluation is a process that is concerned with data collection, interpretation, and formation of judgment on the performance of a nursing student within a practical clinical session (Msiska, Smith, Fawcett, & Munkhondya, 2015, p. 471). The information is collected through observation and interviews with practicing nurses. A major issue that has been identified is the focus of the nursing students to establish social relationships with the practicing nurses in order to change the perception of the nurses towards their performance (Msiska, Smith, Fawcett, & Munkhondya, 2015, p. 474). Where this is successful, the information that would be collected from the supervising nurses would be skewed and this would skew the overall performance of the student. This would result development of biased judgments based on the data collected and as a result, the objectives of the clinical placement would not be effectively achieved.
The issue at hand is the ability of the placement environment to skew the data that is supposed to be collected for objective evaluation. The evaluation process is complex and requires subjective as well as objective judgment (Msiska, Smith, Fawcett, & Munkhondya, 2015, p. 476). The processing of data on the performance of a nursing student is often based on a variety of factors. The data collected is based on how those factors contribute to the performance of the student as a nurse. Based on this, the determination of fair sources of information helps in the minimizing of the effects of subjectivity in the evaluation process (Rafiee, Moattari, Nikbakht, Kojuri, & Mousavinasab, 2014). In addition, the nursing educator and the individuals who are charged with the responsibility of data collection and evaluation should be objective in the evaluation of the student. In order to achieve the required level of objectivity, close supervision of the students by practicing nurses was applied (Rafiee, Moattari, Nikbakht, Kojuri, & Mousavinasab, 2014). This increased the effectiveness of data collection and as a result provided evaluation that is more effective.
As an alternative to observation and the use of interviews with the observing nurses, the educator can also evaluate the performance of the nursing student from the perspective of the patients that the student attended, either under supervision or independently. The objective of nursing is to improve the health-care and the quality of life of patients. In collecting data from patients, the educator is able to achieve more unbiased information. This is because of the fact that the patient shall base the nurses’ performance on the effectiveness of the student to attend to them. The data, which is collected from this perspective, can then be structured in a quantitative manner in order to determine the performance of the student nurse more objectively.
Question 3: Student/Educator Conflict in Objective Setting and Evaluation
This section presents a case study where, “You fail a student in a clinical course. She complains to the coordinator that you provided little instruction and only evaluated her ‘so she would fail.’ In analyzing the case, the paper shall seek to answer the following question: When faced with a student who is not meeting the objectives, what steps can be taken to avoid a situation such as the one in the case at the end of the term.
The structure of a clinical placement should be in such a way as to limit the possibility of skewed perception on the part of the student as well as the educator. This is achieved with an Objective Structured Clinical Assessment test (Stunden, Halcomb, & Jefferies, 2015). In order to achieve this, the learning objectives must be set clearly, the path to goal should be clearly defined and evaluation criteria should be developed with focus on the specified learning objectives. One of the most common problems in nursing placement evaluation is the alignment of the objectives, and the evaluation of objective achievement (Stunden, Halcomb, & Jefferies, 2015). The resultant outcome is conflict between the evaluator and the student. From the case above, it is noted that both the student and the educator failed in developing a placement program that would have helped in achieving the required objectives. On the part of the student, clarification on the instructions was not done prior to commencement of the program. As a result, they were not able to determine the context of the program and the objectives they were required to achieve during the placement period. On the part of the educator, the information on the delivery of the objectives was not communicated effectively and in a timely manner. Additionally, follow-up on the progress of the student during the placement was not done. As a result, the educator did not clarify what the student may have required in order to achieve the objectives of the program effectively.
In order to avoid such a situation, communication between the student and the educator should be made more effective. The communication environment is a system where the sender of the information is required to allow effective feedback from the receiver (Bagcivan, Cinar, Tosun, & Korkmaz, 2015). In order to achieve this, the sender of the information should structure the communication in such a way as to ensure the objective of the communication is understood by the sender, and feedback on the clarity of the objective is received. Thereafter, the communication is sent in a clear manner in order to enable the receiver of the communication to process the information effectively and provide the required feedback. During the period of the placement, the educator consistently and intentionally monitors the performance of the student. This would ensure that the student is at all times aware of the requirements of the placement and the learning objectives of the program (Bagcivan, Cinar, Tosun, & Korkmaz, 2015). Additionally, the educator should allow the student to make clarification of the objectives at all times during the period of the program. Therefore, based on this, it can be noted that communication is the issue that was faced by the educator and the student, which resulted in ineffective achievement of the learning objectives.
References
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Kranzler, J. H., Floyd, R. G., Benson, N., Zaboski, B., & Thibodaux, L. (2016). Cross-Battery Assessment pattern of strengths and weaknesses approach to the identification of specific learning disorders: Evidence-based practice or pseudoscience? International Journal of School & Educational Psychology, 4(3) , 146-157.
Mikkonen, K., Elo, S., Kuivila, H. M., Tuomikoski, A. M., & Kääriäinen, M. (2016). Culturally and linguistically diverse healthcare students’ experiences of learning in a clinical environment: a systematic review of qualitative studies. International journal of nursing studies, 54 , 173-187.
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Msiska, G., Smith, P., Fawcett, T., & Munkhondya, T. M. (2015). Where Is the Grade Coming from? Problems and Challenges in Evaluating the Clinical Performance of Nursing Students. Open Journal of Nursing, 5 , 470-481.
Rafiee, G., Moattari, M., Nikbakht, A. N., Kojuri, J., & Mousavinasab, M. (2014). Problems and challenges of nursing students’ clinical evaluation: A qualitative study. Iranian Journal of Nursing and Midwifery Research, 19(1) , 41–49.
Stunden, A., Halcomb, E., & Jefferies, D. (2015). Tools to reduce first year nursing students' anxiety levels prior to undergoing objective structured clinical assessment (OSCA) and how this impacts on the student's experience of their first clinical placement. Nurse education today, 35(9) , 987-991.
