Professional Experience Placement

This paper by Wu et al (2016) explored the perspectives of preceptors regarding clinical assessment for undergraduate students transitioning to practice. The authors trace the development of nurse preceptors to support novice students into the practice environment as registered nurses. The authors report that preceptors in Singapore are responsible for conducting assessments of students indicating whether they ‘have achieved’ or not for each of the sub-domains of the RN standards of practice.  The preceptors are also expected to provide feedback on the student’s clinical performance. This paper reports on an exploration of the clinical preceptors perspectives on clinical assessment of students.

Focus groups were used to explore this topic and 17 participants were recruited from two tertiary hospitals in Singapore. A semi-structured questionnaire was used as a guide and detail is provided in the paper. Thematic analysis was undertaken and considered by the project team until consensus was reached. There were five main themes: (a) the need to for a valid and reliable clinical assessment tool; (b) meaningful reflection and feedback; (c) varied methods in clinical assessment; (d) high level commitment and struggles with dual roles; and (e) the need to  enhance support system for preceptors.

Findings within each of these themes revealed that preceptors felt that a numeric grading scale should be implemented to reflect different levels of competency in theme (a); In theme (b) preceptors indicated that written reflections by students added value to enlighten the students learning experiences, but they also noted that some students tended to describe their feelings, rather than encounter deep reflection.  Less agreement was found for theme (c)  from preceptors about facilitation includingwhether to use a nurturing explorative learning and teaching approach or the corollary of didactic teacher as expert. Preceptors indicated being appointed as a preceptor made them feel acknowledged within their workplace. Preceptors also reported the stress experienced with the dual role of guiding students while having a full patient load. Preceptors also reported the importance of support to include enabling them to remain contemporaneous in knowledge and practice. Most respondents indicated they had undertaken a 2 day preceptor course provided by their workplace.

In the discussion the authors noted the variance in preceptor education and approach to the role.  There seemed to be a lack of standardised approach, which in turn reduced opportunities for consistency in assessment. The authors concluded by suggesting increasing preceptor preparation to increase confidence and knowledge to enable them to be better equipped to undertake valid and reliable assessments of students and enable continuity about assessment requirements for preceptors.

Whilst this study was undertaken in Singapore these are findings that can be considered within our own assessment of students in /australia, now that the NMBA have released the RN standards for practice which will be used by preceptors in Australia after 1 June 2016 to assess students in practice. The RN Standards  for practice can be found at:

http://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/News/2016-02-01-revised-standards.aspx

If you have any comments about preceptors perspectives, you are welcome to post them here.  Please join us @PEPCommunity.