Engagement in clinical learning environment among nursing students: Role of nurse educators

Melba Sheila D’Souza, Ramesh Venkatesaperumal, Jayanthi Radhakrishnan, Shreedevi Balachandran

Department of Adult Health and Critical Care, College of Nursing, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman.

DOI: 10.4236/ojn.2013.31004                

Abstract

Student engagement in a clinical learning environment is a vital component in the curricula of pre-licensure nursing students, providing an opportunity to combine cognitive, psychomotor, and affective skills. This paper is significant in Arab world as there is a lack of knowledge, attitude and practice of student involvement in the new clinical learning environment. The purpose of this review article is to describe the experiences and perspectives of the nurse educator in facilitating pre-licensure nursing students’ engagement in the new clinical learning environment. The review suggests that novice students prefer actual engagement in clinical learning facilitated through diversity experiences, shared learning opportunities, student-faculty interaction and active learning. They expressed continuous supervision, ongoing feedback, interpersonal relationship and personal support from nurse educators useful in the clinical practice. However, the value of this review lies in a better understanding of what constitutes quality clinical learning environment from the students’ perspective of engagement in evidence-based nursing, reflective practice, e-learning and simulated case scenarios facilitated by the nurse educators. This review is valuable in planning and implementing innovative clinical and educational experiences for improving the quality of the clinical teaching-learning environment.

Keywords

Nursing Student Engagement; Clinical Learning Environment; Assessment; Learning Experiences; Nurse Educator; Student Centered Learning; Teaching-Learning Environment

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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