Level of questioning posed by nurse mentors during undergraduate nursing student clinical assessments

Practice based learning and assessment is fundamental to nurse education within the United Kingdom, with full responsibility and accountability for the assessment of pre-registration nursing students’ clinical competence... [ view full abstract ]

Practice based learning and assessment is fundamental to nurse education within the United Kingdom, with full responsibility and accountability for the assessment of pre-registration nursing students’ clinical competence residing with nurse mentors (NMC 2008). An average of 22,859 nursing students undertake nurse training within the United Kingdom each year (RCN, 2013), so it is imperative that, in the interests of public safety, nurse mentors, as gatekeepers of the professional register, possess the necessary skills to make informed judgements on the competency of nursing students. For nurse mentors, a key skill is the ability to ask higher level questions, and to date, no UK studies have examined the questioning skills of nurse mentors.
This small scale study explored the level of questioning that nurse mentors use during undergraduate nursing student clinical assessments, in relation to Bloom’s taxonomy. It also sought to identify if relationships exist between nurse mentors characteristics and the level of questions they ask?
A quantitative, descriptive survey design was adopted, with a purposive sample of all nurse mentors actively mentoring undergraduate nursing students across both community and hospital settings within one Health and Social Care Trust (HSCT) over a five month period. Data collection took place via an anonymous self-administered questionnaire. Ethical approval was obtained and research Governance procedures followed. Findings revealed that nurse mentors used predominantly low level questioning during undergraduate nursing students clinical assessments and no significant relationships were identified between nurse mentors characteristics and the level of questioning used.
It is recommended that nurse mentors are taught how to use high level questioning when assessing the clinical competence of undergraduate nursing students.
The results of this study will inform training programmes and initiatives, to optimise the level of questioning used by nurse mentors in the Trust.