Development and reliability testing of the quality clinical placement evaluation tool

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Healthcare Quality Assessment
• Clinical Placement Evaluation

Background:

• Clinical experience is crucial for undergraduate nursing degrees.
• Existing evaluation tools often lack multi-perspective input.
• A need exists for a comprehensive tool assessing clinical placement quality from both students and supervising nurses.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and test the content validity, face validity, and reliability of a quality clinical placement evaluation tool.
• To create an instrument that captures the experiences of undergraduate nursing students and supervising ward nurses.
• To provide a robust measure for assessing the quality of clinical placements in acute care settings.

Main Methods:

• Cross-sectional study design.
• Expert panel evaluation and modification of an existing instrument for acute care.
• Surveys administered to undergraduate students (n=48) and supervising ward nurses (n=47).
• Factor analysis for theme identification and reliability assessment using Cronbach's alpha and test-retest methods.

Main Results:

• Factor analysis identified three core themes applicable to both students and nurses: welcome and belonging, support for learning needs, and confidence and competence in learning.
• Reliability testing demonstrated good internal consistency.
• Test-retest reliability was moderate to good for students and fair to moderate for nurses.

Conclusions:

• The quality clinical placement evaluation tool exhibits statistically acceptable reliability and validity.
• The tool effectively measures clinical placement quality from the dual perspectives of undergraduates and supervising nurses.
• This instrument enables tertiary institutions and healthcare facilities to capture and compare clinical placement quality data over time and across sites.