Professional Experience Placement

 Yanhua and Watson (2011) undertook a review of the last 10 years of clinical competence assessment in nursing journal articles. They reported on 23 papers that met the criteria and found that wider national and international cooperation is required to reach common agreement and validity in competency-based education and assessment. The authors noted that competence assessment is a systematic process and many factors can detract from a valid and reliable measurement and the competence level of  student nurses.  Public safety is a key issue and assessment of newly graduated nurses is important . Clinical supervisors are crucial because they assess students during professional experience and ensure the maintenance of professional standards is adhered. It is the objective evaluation capacity to ensure a ‘just’ assessment of competence requires development.

I have previously blogged about ways to facilitate students on professional experience in your workplace.  The literature informs us that belongingness to a team, reducing anxiety, enabling supported and guided exposure to communication and procedural skills improves confidence and increases capacity to develop clinical reasoning and enhances performance. The School of Nursing and Midwifery has developed a range of resources to assist professional experience supervisors to understand their role and function.  The guidelines for facilitation in nursing during professional experience placement are available to assist facilitators in enabling their students to have a high quality learning and teaching experience.  These guidelines provide information about supervision, student learning, feedback, mandatory reporting, guidelines and procedures and resources. Supervisors can use this resource to guide them in assisting students develop towards competency and provide information about  how to develop knowledge and skills about how to assess students in practice. If you have any comments about competency assessment in nursing you are welcome to post them here.