An immersive clinical experience to create sustainable clinical learning opportunities for nurse practitioner students.

ABSTRACT: A significant increase in nurse practitioner program enrollment has resulted in a critical need for committed preceptors willing to offer clinical learning opportunities for students. Academic practice partnerships have been proposed as a strategy to address the preceptorship crisis. This project evaluated the impact of a longitudinal immersive clinical experience designed for nurse practitioner students in collaboration with two federally qualified health centers and an underserved clinic within an academic health center. The study used a pre- and postsurvey method to determine the impact of an immersive clinical experience on preceptor perceptions of benefits and rewards, support, and commitment to the role. A statistically significant increase in preceptor perception of support was noted in three areas. Participants reported increased opportunity to share information with other preceptors, improved support from nursing faculty to help identify students' performance problems, and greater clarity in faculty responsibilities related to the preceptor role. Increases in perceptions of benefits and rewards and commitment to the preceptor role did not reach statistical significance. Immersive clinical experiences have the potential to improve the levels of preceptor support, commitment, and perceived opportunities for benefits and rewards, which may facilitate the development of high-quality, sustainable clinical learning opportunities for nurse practitioner students.

The Child Induction Behavioral Assessment Tool: A Tool to Facilitate the Electronic Documentation of Behavioral Responses to Anesthesia Inductions.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to develop and implement an electronic tool for documenting pediatric patients' behavioral responses to anesthesia induction. DESIGN: Quality improvement methodology was used in the tool development and implementation. METHODS: The Child Induction Behavioral Assessment (CIBA) tool was developed based upon existing validated tools and through discussions with content experts and key stakeholders. Staff usage of the tool was monitored and the clinical utility of the tool was assessed. FINDINGS: The CIBA tool facilitated frequent documentation of behavioral responses to inductions. The majority of clinicians reported that they found the prior CIBA ratings useful when developing induction plans for returning patients. CONCLUSIONS: Electronic documentation using the CIBA tool may provide useful information for optimizing induction plans for returning patients. Future research is needed to directly test the CIBA tool's validity.

Teaching differential diagnosis to nurse practitioner students in a distance program.

An interactive case study (ICS) is a novel way to enhance the teaching of differential diagnosis to distance learning nurse practitioner students. Distance education renders the use of many teaching strategies commonly used with face-to-face students difficult, if not impossible. To meet this new pedagogical dilemma and to provide excellence in education, the ICS was developed. Kolb's theory of experiential learning supported efforts to follow the utilization of the ICS. This study sought to determine whether learning outcomes for the distance learning students were equivalent to those of on-campus students who engaged in a live-patient encounter. Accuracy of differential diagnosis lists generated by onsite and online students was compared. Equivalency testing assessed clinical, rather than only statistical, significance in data from 291 students. The ICS responses from the distance learning and onsite students differed by 4.9%, which was within the a priori equivalence estimate of 10%. Narrative data supported the findings.

Motivating online learners using attention, relevance, confidence, satisfaction Motivational Theory and distributed scaffolding.

Learning online requires self-regulation, intrinsic motivation, and independence. Building an online classroom environment that fosters the development of these behaviors for students is key to their success. Use of ARCS (attention, relevance, confidence, satisfaction) Motivational Theory and distributed scaffolding can assist faculty in developing intentional support to help the online student achieve learning outcomes. The authors discuss development of teaching strategies in online, distance learning courses that will enhance student motivation and learning outcomes.