Assessment and the Educational Process

Abstract

In all areas of nursing education and practice, assessment is important to obtain information about student learning, evaluate competencies and clinical performance, and arrive at other decisions about students and nurses. Assessment is integral to monitoring the quality of educational and healthcare programs. By evaluating outcomes achieved by students, graduates, and patients, the effectiveness of programs can be measured and decisions can be made about needed improvements. Through assessment, nurse educators and other healthcare professionals collect information for evaluating the quality of their teaching and programs, as well as documenting outcomes for others to review. The learning outcomes and competencies play a role in teaching students in varied settings in nursing. They provide guidelines for student learning and instruction and a basis for assessing learning and performance. Evaluation serves to determine the extent and quality of the student’s learning and performance in relation to these outcomes. Formative evaluation is feedback to learners, and summative evaluation indicates competencies and learning that has been achieved. In competency based education, assessment determines students’ achievement of the competencies. The need for clearly stated competencies and outcomes is evident when the teacher translates them into strategies for assessment. These may be written to reflect three domains of learning—cognitive, affective, and psychomotor—each with its own taxonomy.