Prelicensure Nursing Students Developing Clinical Judgment Through Emotional Intelligence: A Qualitative Interpretive Descriptive Study

Michelle Bussard

doi:10.11648/j.ajns.20200906.14

Abstract

Clinical judgment is an essential skill required for nurses to provide safe, quality patient care. Nurse educators must develop effective teaching strategies to assist prelicensure nursing students in developing clinical judgment skills. The objective of this study was to determine if a teaching strategy focused on the affective domain of learning and emotional intelligence could be an effective strategy to promote the development of clinical judgment. A guest speaker was invited to the classroom and provided her “lived experience” with multiple sclerosis, which provided a storytelling method of learning. An interpretive descriptive qualitative study was conducted with twenty-one prelicensure diploma registered nursing students enrolled in a medical-surgical nursing course (in the United States of America). Tanner’s Clinical Judgment Model (noticing, interpreting, responding, and reflecting) was used as the theoretical framework to guide data analysis. Four themes emerged from the data: 1) attentive listening (noticing), 2) understanding the patient’s experience (interpreting), 3) compassionate and empathetic care (responding), and 4) treat the patient as a person, not as a disease (reflecting). Results indicated that storytelling via “lived experiences” is an effective teaching strategy which promotes learning through the affective domain and emotional intelligence while also assisting students in developing clinical judgment. Clinical judgment skills are essential for the graduate nurse transitioning to practice.

Highlights

Prelicensure registered nursing students are required to learn a tremendous amount of information prior to graduation
Nurse educators are tasked with providing effective teaching strategies to ensure that students graduate with necessary clinical judgment skills to provide safe, quality patient care
The purpose of this study was to determine if a teaching strategy focused on the affective domain of learning and emotional intelligence could be an effective strategy to promote the development of clinical judgment in prelicensure registered nursing students enrolled in a medical-surgical nursing course

Summary

Introduction

Prelicensure registered nursing students are required to learn a tremendous amount of information prior to graduation. Because students have limited to no experience with healthcare, they may find it difficult to relate to the topic or fully grasp the reality of the disease being taught, preventing the development of clinical judgment Another traditional teaching strategy is the use of the skills laboratory for students to practice hands-on skills such as insertion of indwelling catheters, nasogastric tubes, or dressing changes using the psychomotor learning domain [2]. Bloom’s taxonomy for educational objectives began in 1949 when a group of educators convened with the goal of improving testing of students through the creation of test banks These test banks were universal because they would measure the same educational outcome. Each domain has a hierarchical approach to learning with the assumption that each level must be achieved prior to advancing to the level of learning

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