Clinical teaching : who best to fulfil the role?

Clinical practice is an integral aspect of any undergraduate nursing curricular and accounts for approximately fifty percent of the program. Experience gained by students in the ‘real life’ practice setting is an eclectic mix of social, traditional, practice and educational elements. Supporting nursing student learning while undertaking clinical experience in this eclectic environment is an important role for the clinical educator. The purpose of the clinical educator is to bridge the theory practice gap, through the provision of guidance, role modelling, teaching and assessment of students in clinical practice. In recent years two clinical teacher models have been embraced; the academic clinical facilitator (ACF) with close links to the theory and the sessional clinical facilitator (SCF) with close links to the clinical setting. While there is a growing body of literature concerned with the role of clinical teacher in facilitating a positive learning environment, currently there is no literature to identify the students’ perceptions of the ACF or the SCF as clinical teachers. This descriptive exploratory study used a purposively developed questionnaire to elicit student (n=84) perceptions of the two clinical teacher models. Results identified that ACF were perceived to contribute to the off-campus learning because of their superior ability to link the theory to practice. Generally the ACF was perceived to be more acutely aware of students’ on-campus learning requirements and where the student were up to with their learning. Having noted this the student with prior nursing experience was more likely to prefer the SCF as the facilitator of learning. The clinical milieu is geared for patient care rather than education and the students within this study may view learning and patient care as two distinct activities. If this is the case these findings have implications for the way in which learning from practice occurs and indeed the theoretical or practice perspective adopted by the clinical teacher in the facilitation of clinical learning.