ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to understand the clinical instructors' role experience in college of nursing. METHODS: Two focus group interviews were held with a total of 12 clinical instructors. All interviews were recorded and transcribed as they were spoken, and the collected data were analyzed using content analysis of Downe-Wamboldt(1992). RESULTS: Three themes and six subthemes were extracted from the analysis: 1) Getting recognition of special roles as a clinical instructor: 'Recognizing the role of clinical instructor for guiding student's individual practice goals', 'Recognizing helping and supporting roles for student's successful clinical practice', 2) Having difficulty in performing the role of clinical practice instructor: 'Difficulty from the lack of knowledge and experience as a clinical practice instructor', 'Difficulty from the gap between current clinical practice and purpose of clinical nursing practice', 3) Making efforts to overcome the difficulties as a clinical instructor and accomplishing personal development: 'Making efforts to acquire personal knowledge and experience', 'Making a chance to reflect on and grow up oneself'. CONCLUSION: Clinical instructors take an important part of clinical nursing education. To improve the quality of clinical nursing education, it is needed role reestablishment and institutional support for clinical instructors on the basis of the understanding of instructors' experience.
Subject(s)
Humans , Education, Nursing , Focus Groups , Nursing , Qualitative ResearchABSTRACT
Clinical instruction is a important component of nursing and allied health education. We aimed to identify clinical teaching behaviors considered by three different groups of clinical instructors to be most important for facilitating learning. The survey tool used contained 73 items, each of which described a clinical-instructor behavior. The participants were 230 clinical instructors (107 nursing instructors, 66 physical therapy instructors, and 57 occupational therapy instructors) who were asked to rate the importance of each item on a five-point scale. Using factor analysis, 10 factors were measured: “teaching ability:clear”, “teaching ability:level”, “teaching ability: enhancement of thinking”, “regulation of psychological environment in clinical learning”, “provide learners with opportunities to practice”, “fairness”, “role model as professional”, “accessibility”, “recognition of individual differences”, and “supervise”. The clinical teaching behaviors rated as most important included “fairness”, “role model as professional”, and “recognition of individual differences”.
ABSTRACT
<I>Objective: </I> In our postgraduate clinical training program, first-year residents are rotated among six subdivisions of internal medicine (cardiology, respiratory diseases, gastroenterology, and endocrinology plus either hematology, collagen diseases, or neurology) every 2 months. The residents are trained by clinical instructors (attending physicians or senior residents) on a one to-one basis. To evaluate training by instructors, a questionnaire survey of first-year residents was performed. <I>Methods: </I> Questionnaires were sent to all 14 first-year residents who took part in our training program in 1998. A questionnaire assessing the performance of 1st-year residents was also sent to 15 clinical instructors participating in the program. The instructors had an average of 7.5±3.9 years of professional expericence. All participants were confidentially informed of the results. <I>Results</I>: All 14 first-year residents responded. They rated experienced attendants more highly than senior residents. The survey revealed specific problems of certain attending physicians, such as communication difficulties and poor teaching skills. <I>Conclusion</I>: Evaluation by first-year residents of training by clinical instructors provides constructive criticism of the training program and of individual instructors.