A Nursing Specific Undergraduate Student Satisfaction Survey Across a Canadian Collaborative Nursing Program

Accurate measurement of university student satisfaction has been associated with later professional attitudes, career commitment, and retention. Universities need to become more competitive business-like service industries focusing on meeting or exceeding the needs of their students while competing for scarce resources and establishing lasting relationships with alumni.  Assessment of student satisfaction in nursing is complex in that we must assess both in-class theory courses and clinical practice . As educators of future professional nurses it behooves us to do a comprehensive assessment of how our students view our programs and curriculum, as it may impact them later as professionals within nursing and as alumni. Evaluation of all aspects of nursing education is challenging, as most university based required standardized evaluations do not fit well with the multiple domains within the nursing curriculum. This issue has been further compounded by the fact that many University based Faculties (FoN) and Schools of Nursing (SoN) across Ontario have engaged in collaborative programs with Community College partners. Currently, all collaborative sites evaluate their student satisfaction using different assessment tools. These independent instruments differ greatly and many aspects, which may contribute specifically to student satisfaction in nursing education, are lacking. These instruments are also administered only via paper and pen, which adds cost, increased time for assessment, and reporting back of results.

Our research used the comprehensive Undergraduate Nursing Students’ Academic Satisfaction Scale (UNSASS). We offered all students the option to do this survey electronically or in paper and pen form to evaluate differences in these methods as we move to more wide spread electronic evaluation processes.

 This presentation discussed the results of and evaluated the use of 1) the UNSASS across multiple sites; 2) the short form of the UNSASS; and 3) electronic vs. paper and pen submission for assessment of satisfaction.