Nursing students' evaluation of clinical placement education quality: A national database analysis

Aim: To report nursing student ratings of clinical placement education quality.

Background: Australian nursing students must complete specified clinical placement hours which must be monitored and evaluated.

Design: A quality improvement evaluation design, incorporating survey.

Methods: Participating universities used QR codes and weblinks to distribute a survey between January and December 2023. The validated Placement Evaluation Tool (PET - Nursing) incorporates 20 items; Clinical Environment (11 items), Cronbach's alpha =.94 and Learning Support (8 items), Cronbach's alpha =.96 and one item rating satisfaction.

Results: Nursing students from 36 universities submitted 17,705 evaluations. The PET - Nursing mean quality rating was 82.6/95 and a mean satisfaction with clinical placement rating (item 20) was 8.3/10; indicating perceived quality of education was high. Students over 41 years reported higher satisfaction compared to younger students as did male students. International students and those who did not speak English at home were more satisfied than domestic students and those who spoke English. First year students rated placements higher than other years. Placements in emergency and intensive care departments received significantly higher ratings than other placements, with aged care settings rated the lowest.

Conclusion: This article reports a benchmark of the educational quality of nursing student placement learning in Australia. The results could be relevant to others seeking to improve the quality of students' clinical learning. Stakeholders need to leverage the reported strengths that enhance student experiences and address the issues and concerns raised to improve the educational quality of nursing students' clinical learning experiences.