Evaluating Nurse Practitioner Student Competencies: Application of Entrustable Professional Activities

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Clinical Competence Assessment
• Healthcare Simulation

Background:

• A gap exists in best practices for assessing nurse practitioner (NP) student clinical competence.
• Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) offer a framework to translate competencies into practice.
• This study explored an EPA-based method for NP clinical competency assessment using simulated experiences.

Purpose of the Study:

• To pilot an Entrustable Professional Activities (EPA)-based method for assessing nurse practitioner (NP) student clinical competence.
• To evaluate the utility of EPA activity descriptions in simulated clinical scenarios.
• To inform the development of standardized, competency-based NP assessment processes.

Main Methods:

• Six EPAs were developed and mapped to core NP competencies.
• Clinical scenarios were designed to assess student performance using EPA-based rubrics.
• Online NP students participated in simulated clinical experiences, and faculty assigned utility scores to EPAs.

Main Results:

• Student EPA scores aligned with program timelines.
• Over 70% of EPA activity descriptions were deemed useful or required minor edits by faculty.
• The pilot demonstrated feasibility of EPA-based assessment in simulated environments.

Conclusions:

• This pilot study represents a significant advancement in creating a standardized, competency-based assessment for NP clinical performance.
• The EPA framework shows potential for reliable and valid evaluation of NP student skills.
• Further research can refine this approach for broader implementation in NP education.