Paper
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Aptitudes and attitudes of nursing clinical teachers. The students perspective
Laura Morán, ED, M, Nursing School/ Graduate Studies, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico and Zumano Sofia Perez, M, S, N, Open University System, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico.
| Learning Objective #1: The learner will be able to analyse and discuss about the aptitudes and attitudes of nursing clinical teachers, considering the students perspective. |
| Learning Objective #2: The learner will be able to identify some factors affecting clinical teaching and learning. |
Background: In our country there are few studies that evaluate teachers whom teach in the clinical settings.
Purpose: Clinical teaching is a fundamental strategy to promote practical knowledge, in order to accomplish it, then a profile that promotes significative learning is required. This study focused on exploring the clinical teacher’s attributes from the students perspective by quantitative and qualitative ways.
Methods: An observational, tranversal, prolective and comparative study was done in a sample of 372 nursing bachelor students. The variables of study were: knowledge and clinical competence of the subject, interpersonal relationships with the students, teaching skills, evaluation strategies and personal characteristics. To gather the information, Nursing Clinical Teacher Effectiveness Inventory, by Knox and Mogan (1985), was used. However, for the purposes of this study, it was modified by Pérez and Morán (2004). For the qualitative approach four nursing bachelor advanced students were interviewed. The analysis of text with open and axial coding was made.
Findings: Statistically meaningful differences were found in the variables of study, the students gave a higher score to the professors that work simultaneously at the hospital, also to those that have a higher academic level. In the qualitative sense, three themes were identified: Aptitudes for clinical teaching; Positive and negative clinical teacher attitudes that affects clinical learning; and Clinical settings factors that affect the clinical teaching and learning.
Conclusions: Some consistent factors regarding reported studies in literature were found, except in the evaluation strategies dimension. Fourth semester students give professors lower score in all the variables with statistically differences. The instrument used allowed to identify the clinical teacher’s attributes and it can be used to assess their performance. Besides this, the students perceive clinical settings factors that affect clinical teaching and learning.