Using the Clark Simulation Evaluation Rubric with associate degree and baccalaureate nursing students

As simulation becomes a common teaching strategy in nursing education, faculty struggle with methods for measuring student performance in summative, or evaluative, scenarios. While skills checklists have been shown to be a valid way to quantify performance on many of the technical components of a patient care scenario, nurse educators have also begun to utilize simulation grading rubrics to capture more contextual and critical thinking components. The article describes a pilot study using the Clark Simulation Evaluation Rubric with undergraduate nursing students of different levels from two types of programs. Sixty-nine associate degree and 109 baccalaureate degree students were evaluated and scored in simulation performance using the rubric. The rubric was found to be a practical tool that could potentially be used with or without skills checklists. Future work will involve refining use of the rubric and establishing interrater reliability among faculty who routinely evaluate students using this rubric.