Determining the opinions of the first-year nursing students about clinical practice and clinical educators

The clinical experience prepares nursing students to become competent and professional practitioners. The evaluation of the clinical learning environment is important to determine if the clinical experience and clinical instructor provide essential learning opportunities as well as a supportive environment. This study aimed to determine the opinions of first-year nursing students about their instructors and clinical practice in the clinical education setting. The sample of the study consists of 227 students from Akdeniz University Nursing Faculty enrolled in the 'Nursing Basics' course. The mean age of the students was 19.30 +/- 0.83, and 74% of the students stated that they were satisfied with clinical practice. During clinical applications, 70.8% of the students were guided by one nurse and one educator while 20.4% and 8.8% were accompanied with only an educator and only a nurse, respectively. A review of the opinions of the students about their educators revealed that they held positive opinions about the educators in terms of adequate theoretical knowledge (74.1%), openness to dialogue (67.9%), encouraging students to do research (62.7%), giving support to students during clinical practice (61.6%), and appreciating the positive behaviours of students (61.7%). In conclusion, it was determined that, although the students regarded the educators as competent in terms of theoretical knowledge and skill and successful in motivating, orienting, and encouraging the students, they viewed inaccessibility of educators as the leading problem.