Nurse educators are challenged with identifying the learning needs of nursing students and the staff nurses they support. The ability to adequately assess prior experience and learning needs assists the nurse educator in developing education in a way that supports individual learners. One experience I had as a unit based nurse educator was in developing a nurse residency program for new grad nurses. We had a significant vacancy in staff nurse positions on our cardiac telemetry unit. The available pool of applicants consisted of ASN and BSN prepared new graduate nurses with varying exposure to the health care field. As a nurse educator it is important to understand the significant differences in clinical and academic training of nurses of varying degree levels. Also, the varying backgrounds of work experience among our applicants.
A strategy to address the differing learning needs and levels of experience of our nurse residency group was to have all nurses complete a self assessment at the beginning of the program. This self assessment lists vital components of the nurse residency and allows the nurses to rate their experience on a scale of 1-5. A “1” is no experience, and a “5” is can perform the skill/activity independently. A thorough review of the self assessments helped to develop and individualized education plans that addressed the areas of greatest need for all participants. As the residency progressed all new hire staff had the opportunity to review topics and content areas and move quickly through previously learned skills and spend more time on those that needed greater attention. We had more than one educator involved in the residency and had the ability to provide repeat opportunities to learn for those who needed further explanation and practice. Lachman & Nilsson state “it is important for the students to develop their ability to identify their own knowledge gaps and their need for competence development” (2021).
Another important factor to consider in our nurse residency was how to measure competence. “The use of valid and reliable assessment tools to measure the competence, progress, and development of nursing students is of importance to both nursing students and their teachers” (Lachman & Nilsson, 2021). In this case we used case studies and simulation to assess and evaluate end of program goals and competence. “Simulation can be used for summative evaluation of students’ competencies, documenting that their performance meets predetermined standards” (Oermann, 2016). By assessing competence through simulation we could evaluate that our new grad nurses had the tools to be successful in their professional roles. We also used formative assessments such as repeat demonstration and post tests throughout the residency as new content was introduced. Both methods of evaluation provided the nursing education team the ability to identify areas of need for the learners and continue to progress towards the residency goals.
References
Kaylor, S. K., & Strickland, H. P. (2015). Unfolding case studies as a formative teaching methodology for novice nursing students. The Journal of Nursing Education, 54(2), 106–110. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.3928/01484834-20150120-06
Lachmann, H., & Nilsson, J. (2021). Dual use of instruments for assessing nursing students professional- and clinical competence. Nurse Education Today, 96. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2020.104616
Oermann, M. H. (2016). Using Simulation for Summative Evaluation in Nursing. Nurse Educator, 41(3), 133. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1097/NNE.0000000000000266
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