Nurse Faculty's Strategies to Teach Clinical Judgment: Use of Transformative Learning Theory in the Nursing Classroom

Clinical judgment is an important skill used by nurses. Unfortunately, the literature demonstrates a lack of this skill in new nurses entering the profession. With a decreased understanding and use of clinical judgment, patient outcomes are compromised. Research has shown that clinical judgment is acquired through experience. In nursing programs, this experience may be obtained through hospital-based clinical instruction and simulation scenarios. Although the literature demonstrates these methods of instruction beneficial to learning clinical judgment, time restraints and limited facility availability complicates the ability to provide these modalities to the students. Nursing courses incorporate theory credits into the curriculum, providing programs the opportunity to utilize this time to enhance the learning of clinical judgment. Three themes were identified in this study including clinical judgment is intentional, active teaching strategies using experiences with repetition, and limited impact of NGN on instruction. This study found the nursing faculty's definition of clinical judgment contained the basic components of Tanner's definition; the definition used by the NCSBN in the creation of the Clinical Judgment Model. Reported strategies used in the classroom to promote the increase of clinical judgment included active learning strategies and repetition in nursing students reflected the basic components of Mezirow's Transformative Learning Theory. However, the use of the Clinical Judgment Model in nursing theory was found to be lacking, with most of the participants using the Nursing Process model in their instruction. Faculty reported the NGN had little impact on classroom instruction. Future research could include further exploration of the use of the Clinical Judgment Model in nursing theory.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Alabama Libraries

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Ruckman, Lynette Kay

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• McKnight, Doug

Contributors dc:contributor

• Atkinson, Becky
• Cheshire, Michelle
• Robinson, Cecil

• Active Learning
• Clinical Judgment
• Critical Thinking

Statement dc:rights

• All rights reserved by the author unless otherwise indicated.

Language dc:language.iso

en_US, English

Dc Identifier Other

1170605

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ir.ua.edu:123456789/17036