Since nursing science is a practical science, clinical practices provide opportunities for the students at the real clinical settings to put into application the knowledge and skill they have learned in theory. This study is a descriptive-comparative...
Since nursing science is a practical science, clinical practices provide opportunities for the students at the real clinical settings to put into application the knowledge and skill they have learned in theory. This study is a descriptive-comparative study attempted to find out the kinds of influences it could make on the critical thinking propensity, clinical competency, and the satisfaction of clinical practice.
Subjects for this study included 80 persons from the preceptor group and 51 persons from the conventional method group, whose data were collected by self-reported questionnaires from May 13 to June 17 in 2005.
As for the tools employed, Sun-Hwan Park's(1999) critical thinking propensity, Won-Hee Lee and et al.(1990) Clinical Competency and Sook-Ja Lee's(1980) satisfaction for clinical practice were utilized. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics using SPSS 12.0 program.
The results were as follows:
1. The critical thinking propensity between the preceptor group and the conventional method group revealed statistically significant difference (t=3.74, p<.001).
2. The clinical competency between the preceptor group and the conventional method group revealed statistically significant difference (t=7.95, p<.001).
3. Satisfaction for clinical practices between the preceptor group and the conventional method group revealed statistically significant difference (t=2.34, p<.021).
4. Subject's critical thinking propensity revealed significant correlations, along with the clinical competency(r=.356, p<.001) and the satisfaction for clinical practice(r=.517, p<.001). And the clinical competency revealed statistically significant correlations with the satisfaction for clinical practice(r=.460, p<.001).
5. Scores for subjects' critical thinking propensity according to the general characteristics revealed significant difference with school years(t=7.49, p=.008) and with interpersonal relationships(t=10.88, p=.001) among the preceptor group, while it revealed significant difference with sex(t=5.70, p=.021) and with interpersonal relationships(t=9.55, p=.003) among the conventional method group.
6. Scores for subjects' clinical competency according to the general characteristics revealed significant difference with school years(t=7.41, p=.008) and with interpersonal relationships(t=4.34, p=.041), and with satisfaction for nursing major(t=14.38, p<.001) only among the preceptor group.
7. Scores for subjects' satisfaction for clinical practices according to the general characteristics revealed significant difference with school years(t=6.61, p=.012) among the preceptor group, while it revealed significant difference with interpersonal relationships(t=4.47, p=.040) and with satisfaction for nursing major(t=10.71, p=.002) among the conventional method group.
Findings of this study reveals that the nursing students who had clinical practice under the guidance of the preceptor showed higher scores in the critical thinking propensity, clinical competency, and the satisfaction for clinical practice than those nursing students who received clinical practices under the conventional method. Consequently, we are quite consciously encouraged to reinforce the preceptorship for realization of an effective clinical practice education for nursing students.