Description/Overview: Purpose: Baccalaureate nursing curricula have long emphasized the value of providing clinical experiences for students in the community and many use service-learning pedagogy. Few curricula however, evaluate student learning outcomes beyond anecdotal reports. The UNF Home-base Model, operating for 11 years, is a unique cross-term curriculum that places students in the same community for the length of their nursing program. The purpose of this symposium is to present the participatory methods used in the development of a psychometrically tested scale to measure student learning outcomes, disseminate student learning outcomes of a three year multiple cohort mixed-method evaluation study, and discuss plans to continue our participatory approach to evaluate community level outcomes. Methods: The iterative participatory approach used to develop the Community Nursing Student Assessment Scale (CNSAS) will be discussed along with data supporting reliability and validity of the tool. Findings from a multi-cohort nursing student evaluation (n=191) will be presented. Plans for future participatory evaluation of community outcomes of student service-learning will be discussed. Results: Our participatory evaluation approach to continuous quality improvement led to the development of a valid and reliable assessment tool relevant to faculty, students, and community partners. This scale along with open-ended questions were used in evaluation of 9 cohorts of nursing students over a three year period as they progressed through their nursing program. Student learning outcomes measured by the CNSAS at entry and exit from the nursing program demonstrated significant learning across the six domains and 39 item scale complemented by qualitative findings. Conclusion: Assessment and continuous curriculum improvement is expected by accreditation agencies. Evaluation methods and tools used in this study are applicable to any nursing program with an emphasis on community health promotion. Evaluation of nursing curricula is essential to developing an evidence-base for academic practice.

Learner Objective #1: Describe the participatory evaluation design of the UNF Community Home-base Model used to measure student learning outcomes and explore community outcomes.

Learner Objective #2: Discuss the results from mixed-method evaluation of the UNF Community Home-base Model on student service-learning outcomes.