Innovative nursing education through collaboration in schools

The America's Promise School Project (APSP) is an innovative curriculum change designed to provide pediatric and public health clinical experiences for undergraduate nursing students. Undergraduate nursing students are exposed to pediatric and public health experiences in elementary, junior high and high schools by working with school nurses, performing community assessments, designing, implementing and evaluating health promotion activities based on the assessment. Program evaluation is required to assure that the new clinical experiences provide adequate and quality clinical experiences. Three objectives were designed to evaluate quality and comparable clinical experience. Quality clinical experiences were assessed by focus groups conducted at the end of each semester. Comparability of nursing education was assessed by comparing scores of the traditional clinical group to scores of the America's Promise clinical group on a standardized exam completed by all nursing students at the end of each semester. Clinical skills were evaluated with by trained observers scoring four pediatric clinical scenarios using the Lasater Clinical Judgment Rubric. Aggregate scores were used to compare clinical groups. Lessons learned: Focus group content has provided ongoing quality improvement data for refinement of program processes. Analysis of standardized testing has demonstrated no difference between clinical groups. Analysis of clinical skills data will be available summer 2013. Recommendations: Evaluation of curriculum change using qualitative and quantitative methods provides insight into the learning experiences of students as well as assurance that the clinical experiences are comparable to traditional experiences.