Communicating leveled clinical expectations to nursing students

Nurse educators agree on the need for objectives in the classroom situation and frequently communicate them in a written form. Written expectations for clinical, however, are rarely given to student nurses prior to their clinical experience. Clinical expectations are understood by instructors, but communicating them to students result in mixed interpretations. The article describes the development of a written method of communicating clinical expectations to solve this problem. This method correlates clinical expectations with classroom content and course objectives and levels the expectations in increasing complexity by using the nursing process as a framework. The written leveled expectations are distributed to student nurses on a weekly basis. Clinical experiences are enhanced for students and faculty who use this method.