Preliminary study of outcome-based clinical practicum for undergraduate nursing students

A growing trend in South Korean nursing education is toward outcome-based education. In response, there is now a greater emphasis on achieving the learning outcomes that are outlined in the curricula of outcome-based education. This study aimed to describe the effectiveness of outcome-based clinical practicum for nursing students.

In this preliminary longitudinal study, 62 third-year nursing students were enrolled from a university in Seoul, Korea. Three parameters of proficiency were measured three times in the students for 1 year including: achievement of expected learning outcomes, nurses' core competence, and critical thinking. For the data analysis, a descriptive analysis and repeated-measures ANOVA were used with the IBM SPSS v. 23.0 software program.

Completing the outcome-based clinical practicum was associated with a significantly enhanced achievement of expected learning outcomes, nurses' core competency, and critical thinking. All of the six expected learning outcomes significantly improved across the pre-, mid-, and postpracticum time points.

The outcome-based clinical practicum improved the achievement of the expected learning outcomes, nurses' core competency, and critical thinking of the nursing students. Further study is recommended to investigate students' and educators' qualitative experiences of outcome-based clinical practicum.