Strategy for teaching evaluation research in psychiatric/mental health nursing

The evaluation research course presented in this paper is one strategy for introducing needed evaluation research content at the graduate level in nursing. The course was developed for students who were in their final semester of completing requirements for an MSN degree with a major in psychiatric/mental health nursing. To provide for active involvement in the evaluation research process, students evaluated a psychotherapy group in which they were therapists. The theoretical framework for both class content and the evaluation research project was based on Bloch's extension of Donabedian's approach to evaluation. Using the theoretical framework as a guide, students investigated both process and outcome as well as the relationship between process and outcome. Students reported that the knowledge and skills gained were valuable to their clinical practice. On the other hand, students found the course to be very demanding and difficult to complete in a 15 week period. One unexpected benefit, however, was that the course helped students to understand group process better.