Clinical Evaluation

Critique of a Clinical Evaluation Tool

Educating nurses while ensuring the safety of the patient and the learner is quite a challenge. Clinical faculty face this challenge each semester as nursing students enter into the clinical world of nursing. In order to evaluate nursing students in the clinical field, an evaluation tool is necessary to serve as in instrument that will allow the faculty to assess each learner’s competence (Bonnel, 2012). The purpose of this paper is to critique the design and content of the clinical evaluation tool utilized by the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS) School of Nursing in Manchester, NH. This evaluation tool is utilized in is NUR 325, Provider of Care 1: Adult and Elder Health.

The Guidelines section is an area that gives a general overview of the course. It is intended for both the student and the clinical faculty. It provides guidelines, expectations, and instructions. At the end of the guidelines section it does state and have a category of Needs Improvement. Needs Improvement can only be assigned at a midpoint evaluation. Any Needs Improvement should be further addressed in the final evaluation. This section should also state the ramifications if the student does receive a Needs Improvement or Fail in the mid-point summative evaluation. That way the student knows prior to the start of clinical what the ramifications will be if they under

The Mid-Point Evaluation section has three categories of Satisfactory, Needs Improvement, and Unsatisfactory. This is the where feedback can be given, which broadly categorizes the developmental progress of the learner. Formative evaluation focuses on the process of student development during a clinical activity (Billings & Halstead, 2016) Utilizing these feedback categories allows for students to learn from mistakes and it allows for growth of the student and therefore should not be given a numerical grade. The comment boxes are designed to be used to identify specific strengths and weaknesses. They can also be used to plan learning opportunities, plans for success, or leaning contracts be documented. Having the critique set up in a formative way assists in diagnosing student problems and leaning needs (Billings & Halstead, 2016). One disadvantage of having formative evaluations is that it may actually demotivate a student. Their self-esteem is lowered by the poor performance which in turn, may lead them to put in less effort (Bourke & Ihrke, 2012). In addition, the faculty must preserve objectivity and must try to rid of all