J Korean Acad Soc Nurs Educ.  2015 Feb;21(1):75-85. 10.5977/jkasne.2015.21.1.75.

The Effects of Preclinical Clinical Performance Examination on Nursing Students' Confidence in Nursing Skills and Critical Thinking Competence

• Park JS
• Choi MJ
• Jang SY

• KMID: 2327554
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.5977/jkasne.2015.21.1.75

Abstract

PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of preclinical clinical performance examination (CPX) on nursing students' confidence in their nursing skills and critical thinking competence.
METHODS
The design of this research was one-group pretest-posttest, and the participants were 112 nursing students. The preclinical CPX consisted of a clinical examination, patient-nurse relationship, oral test of related knowledge, written test of the nursing process, and debriefing using comprehensive scenarios based on real patient cases. The confidence of nursing skills consisted of an 8-item NRS and the critical thinking competence consisted of a 12-item 4-point scale developed by researchers and measured in both the pretest and posttest. The collected data were analyzed using paired t-tests, ANOVA, and Pearson correlation coefficients.
RESULTS
The score for confidence in nursing skills (t=10.60, p<.001) and that for critical thinking competence (t=7.03, p<.001) increased significantly after preclinical CPX.
CONCLUSION
This study showed that preclinical CPX was effective in improving nursing students' confidence in their nursing skills and critical thinking competence. Therefore, preclinical CPX is expected to be utilized in nursing practice education. Additional studies including those on control groups are recommended to compare differences between the preclinical CPX group and control group.

Keyword

Clinical performance examination; Nursing student; Critical thinking; Competence

MeSH Terms

Education
Humans
Mental Competency*
Nursing Process
Nursing*
Students, Nursing
Thinking*