Undergraduate Supervised Clinical Practicum Activities: An Enlightening Exploration

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Clinical Practice

Background:

• Clinical nursing practice is central to nursing education, applying knowledge in patient care settings.
• Current literature lacks detailed descriptions of daily faculty and student activities in clinical education.
• Existing research primarily focuses on evaluating clinical education models and student learning perceptions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the explicit daily activities undertaken by nursing faculty and students during clinical education.
• To address the gap in literature concerning the day-to-day experiences in clinical nursing education.

Main Methods:

• An exploratory descriptive study design was employed.
• Data were collected from 61 survey participants in the southeastern United States.
• The study focused on the explicit undertakings of a typical clinical day.

Main Results:

• Survey responses provided detailed descriptions of clinical day activities.
• Key activities included preclinical preparation, prebriefing, student clinical tasks, faculty supervision, and postconference sessions.
• The structure of postconference activities was also described.

Conclusions:

• The study provides foundational knowledge on daily clinical activities in nursing education.
• This insight can inform improvements in clinical education strategies.
• The goal is to better connect clinical activities with the development of essential student competencies.