Students' perceptions of effective and ineffective clinical instructors

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Higher Education Pedagogy
• Faculty Development

Background:

• Clinical nursing faculty are evaluated based on four key qualities: professional competence, interpersonal relationships, personality characteristics, and teaching ability.
• Understanding which of these qualities most significantly contributes to perceived faculty effectiveness is crucial for improving nursing education.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the primary factors contributing to differences in effectiveness among clinical nursing faculty.
• To identify the relative importance of professional competence, interpersonal relationship, personality characteristics, and teaching ability in effective clinical nursing instruction.

Main Methods:

• A quantitative study involving 214 nursing students from two institutions.
• Utilized a 5-point Likert-type scale questionnaire to assess student perceptions of clinical nursing faculty qualities.
• Compared scores for effective versus ineffective teachers across the four identified quality categories.

Main Results:

• Effective clinical nursing faculty scored highly (> 4) in all four quality categories.
• Ineffective faculty scored lower (< 3) in all categories except professional competence.
• Interpersonal relationship and personality characteristics showed the largest score differences between effective and ineffective teachers, indicating their greater impact on perceived effectiveness.

Conclusions:

• Student-perceived effectiveness of clinical nursing faculty is more strongly influenced by interpersonal skills and attitudes than by professional competence.
• Improving faculty attitudes toward students is recommended as the most effective strategy for enhancing clinical teaching.
• Student perceptions of essential faculty qualities are consistent across different nursing schools.