Abstract

Many new graduate nurses lack clinical competence in the practice setting. The purposes of this study were (a) to examine the differences in the gains in clinical competence between those students who participated in summer preceptorship programs and those students who worked as nursing assistants in noninstructional clinical settings, and (b) to describe how students in each group perceived various factors of their summer work experience relative to their preferences. Nonprobability convenience sampling was used to obtain a sample of 72 female generic baccalaureate nursing students. A nonequivalent comparison group pretest-posttest design was utilized. Treatment group subjects participated in hospital-based summer preceptorship programs for nursing students. Comparison group subjects worked as nursing assistants in hospitals that did not offer these students a planned instructional program during their employment. Data were collected utilizing the self-administered Participant Information Survey and Summer Experience Survey. Head nurses utilized the Clinical Competence Rating Scale to rate subjects' clinical competence at the beginning and end of the summer experience. A chi-square analysis of the Participant Information Survey data indicated that both study groups were similar on most of the extraneous variables of concern in this study. ANCOVA was performed on mean scores for the Clinical Competence Rating Scale. Both groups achieved gains in clinical competence from pretest to posttest. However, significantly greater gains in clinical competence were achieved by the treatment group subjects. Descriptive analysis of the Summer Experience Survey data indicated that subjects in both groups enjoyed a "buddy" relationship with either their RN preceptor or an RN staff nurse on their unit. Subjects in both groups indicated that the summer experience was beneficial to them and that they improved their clinical competence. Since the preceptor-preceptee relationship was either naturally or spontaneously created for most subjects in the study, one must search further to find an explanation for the difference in the gains in clinical competence at the end of the summer work experience. Factors to be considered when examining this difference include other variables inherent in the preceptorship experience. Additionally, organizational variables may have contributed to the differences in the gains in clinical competence.

Description

This dissertation has also been disseminated through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. Dissertation/thesis number: 8816007; ProQuest document ID: 303687899. The author still retains copyright.

Author Details

Linda Jean Scheetz, EdD, RN, FAEN

Sigma Membership

Delta Zeta, Mu Epsilon

Type

Dissertation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Quasi-Experimental Study, Other

Research Approach

Quantitative Research

Keywords:

Nursing Students, Clinical Competence, New Nurses

Advisors

Harrell, Valentina

Degree

Doctoral-Other

Degree Grantor

Teachers College, Columbia University

Degree Year

1988

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

None: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Date of Issue

2019-11-20

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