Pre-registration nursing student's quality of practice learning: Clinical learning environment inventory (actual) questionnaire

ABSTRACTBackground: Clinical learning is a vital component of nurse education and assessing student’s experiences can provide useful insights for development. Whilst most research in this area has focused on the acute setting little attention has been given to all pre-registration nurses’ experience across the clinical placements arenas. Objectives: To examine of pre-registration nursing students (first, second and third year) assessment of their actual experiences of their most recent clinical learning clinical learning experience.Design: A cross sectional survey involving a descriptive online anonymous questionnaire based on the clinical learning environment inventory tool.Settings: One higher education institution in the United KingdomParticipants: Nursing students (n=147) enrolled in an undergraduate nursing degree.Methods: This questionnaire included demographic questions and the Clinical Learning Environment Inventory (CLEI) a 42 item tool measuring student’s satisfaction with clinical placement. SPPS version 22 was employed to analyse data with descriptive and inferential statistics.Results: Overall students were satisfied with their clinical learning experience across all placement areas. This was linked to the 6 constructs of the clinical learning environment inventory; personalization, innovation, individualization, task orientation, involvement, satisfaction. Significant differences in student experience were noted between age groups and student year but there was no difference noted between placement type, age and gender.Conclusions: Nursing students had a positive perception of their clinical learning experience, although there remains room for improvement. Enabling a greater understanding of students perspective on the quality of clinical education is important for nursing education and future research.