Guided Reflective Writing Rubric Validation: A Tool for Nursing Education Assessment of Student Clinical Judgment

Abstract

Nurse educators have been challenged to not guide clinical judgment development in nursing students but determine students’ level of clinical judgment. As clinical judgment is not easily assessed, nurse educators are seeking reliable measurements of clinical judgment. The researchers of this project sought to determine the reliability and validity of the Guided Reflective Writing rubric as developed by Smith (2020). Students in the Fort Hays State University Nursing program routinely use the Guided Reflective Writing assignment and rubric post-clinical for journaling. Inter-rater reliability was completed on second semester and fourth semester first and last journals. Moderate reliability was established for the second semester students whereas strong reliability was established for the fourth semester students. Content validity was not established with the comparison of the Guided Reflective Writing rubric and the Lasater Clinical Judgment rubric. The results indicate that the Guided Reflective Writing rubric can be used to assess clinical judgment at all levels of nursing students. Although content validity was not established, one can conclude that clinical judgment can be assessed in multiple modalities.