PERCEPTION OF NURSING STUDENTS ON CLINICAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

Introduction: Clinical learning environment provides opportunities for students to develop competence, to socialize with the profession and to bridge the gap between academic and workplace learning. The quality of clinical learning environment influences student’s achievement of learning outcomes and their perception of clinical learning environment.
Materials and Methods: A Quantitative approach with descriptive cross-sectional survey design was adopted to assess the perception of nursing students on ideal clinical learning environment. The samples were nursing students and total samples included were 90. Total enumerative sampling was adopted. The tools are prepared based on the literature reviews and experts’ guidance. The objectives of the study were to identify the perception of nursing students on ideal clinical learning environment, structured clinical learning inventory was administered. The scores were arbitrarily categorized as poor (≤ 88), good (89 – 175), very good (176 – 265) and excellent (266 – 350). Data was collected online, and it was analysed by using descriptive and inferential statistics.
Results & Discussion: The study findings revealed that majority were females (78.89%) and less than 21 years (62%) were unmarried (94.44%). Majority of the nursing students’ (47.77%) were from first year. The results shows that a total of 88 (97.7%) nursing students had excellent perception on how an ideal clinical learning environment should be. The total mean score was 543.477 with standard deviation of 67.46. There was no significant association was found between demographic and perception scores.
Conclusion: Clinical experience for nursing students is a crucial aspect of their professional education. A supportive clinical learning environment is of paramount importance for competency development. It should provide the students with an environment where they can receive optimal learning opportunities.