Assessing Undergraduate Student Readiness for Evidence-Based Practice

Purpose:  To measure EBP competencies and knowledge of students in the EBP/Research course in all three of our undergraduate curricula.

Methods: Over the past four years we reengineered EBP throughout the undergraduate program (traditional four year, accelerated BSN, and BSN completion) using the AACN Baccalaureate Essentials as our roadmap. Student and faculty feedback was positive, work products were excellent; however there was no objective measure of student outcomes. A search was conducted to locate an evidence-based instrument to measure EBP competencies.

  The ACE Evidence Based Readiness Inventory (ACE-ERI) is an online instrument that measures self-reported competencies in EBP. The instrument is based on nationally established EBP competencies and has strong validity and reliability, and is able to pick up changes pre and post intervention. It has been used in both clinician and student populations.  The tool incorporates the EBP competencies, a knowledge test focusing on knowledge transformation and demographic information. IRB approval was obtained from the university.  Faculty explained to students the purpose of the ACE ERI and that this was an example of evidence based education. Students received an email invitation to participate in the survey at the start and completion of the course.  In order to encourage students to complete the survey, a certificate of completion was generated for students.

Results: The ACE ERI has been administered to four cohorts over the past two years.  There was an 88% return rate for both pre and post surveys. Student knowledge increased as did level of confidence in EBP competencies. Pretest and posttest mean scores for ACE-ERI competencies were compared.  Statistical significance was achieved for all twenty competencies (p < 0.001). Analyses were run to investigate the correlations between the questions and the demographic variables. There were no statistically significant relationships indicating that the variation in the results was not related to the demographics of the students.

Conclusions: Student knowledge and competency in /EBP increased significantly.  Plans are to use the ACE-ERI to measure EBP knowledge and competency on a continuing basis. In addition, we will resurvey the students with the ACE-ERI at program completion.  In addition, all faculty teaching the course will be surveyed using the ACE-ERI.