Nursing students' and clinical faculty members' perceptions of effective clinical instructors’ characteristics in Bahrain

Abstract

Clinical teaching is an essential component of nursing education. Clinical instructors train students to acquire skills for safe nursing care delivery. It is assumed that certain instructor characteristics may have greater effects on student learning as described in the western literature, yet, it is not known if those characteristics have the same effect in different cultures and settings such as Bahrain where no study has been done on this issue. The purpose of this study was to explore the characteristics of effective clinical instructors as perceived by nursing students and nursing instructors. Another purpose was to identify if there is any difference between nursing students and nursing faculty members’ rating of the effective clinical instructors’ characteristics.Sample: The sample included 144 junior and senior students and 18 nursing faculty members; a total of 162 participants from the College of Health Sciences (CHS) in Bahrain. Only Junior and senior year nursing students were eligible to participate because they were involved in clinical learning; and the faculty members were involved in clinical instruction. First and second year nursing students were excluded as they usually have minimum clinical exposure and less experience with clinical instruction.After obtaining approval from the Institutional Review Board at AUB and from CHS ethical committee, students and instructors were approached by the investigator who invited them to participate in the study by reading the consent, stating the purpose of the study with it's possible benefits, its contribution to nursing education and data collection method. They were also assured that their names or individual answers will not be disclosed.Method for the quantitative part: The students were approached in their classes after taking the permission of class instructors; and instructors were approached in their offices. Those who agreed to participate were given the questionnaire with a self-sealed envelope and were asked to complete and put it