Nursing students’ satisfaction with supervision from preceptors and teachers during clinical practice

Abstract

The last two decades have seen widespread changes in nursing education. The clinical environment remains important for the development of nursing students’ confidence in and fulfillment of intended learning outcomes. Preceptors and university teachers are an invaluable resource in preparing students for the reality of their professional roles. The current study examined Norwegian nursing students’ perceptions of preceptors’ and university teachers’ supervision. Participants were invited to complete a version of the Nursing Facilitator Clinical Questionnaire (NFCQ) after the completion of their latest clinical practice periods. Three hundred and eighty students representing all three years of education completed the questionnaire. Data were analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics. It was found that students highly valued teachers’ and preceptors’ supervision, although teachers’ supervision was rated somewhat more highly. Fulfillment of learning outcomes for clinical practice was also rated highly, and the teachers’ supervision was estimated, to some extent, more highly than the preceptors’ supervision in this respect. The study underlines that, in addition to the estimation of satisfaction with supervision, it is important to relate supervision to the intended learning outcomes, which can be seen as a realization of that which students should know.