The association of positive and negative feedback with clinical performance, self-evaluation and practice contribution of nursing students

Abstract

Background: Providing consistent and high-quality feedback is a crucial component of clinical instruction. Such feedback can improve the students' ability to reflect themselves more accurately. However, giving feedback, especially negative is intricate.

Objectives: To evaluate the level of feedback provided to nursing students during clinical practice and investigate their association with related outcomes, such us clinical performance, self-evaluation of achievements and contribution of the practice to the professional skills.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Settings and participants: 124 third-year nursing students during their "Emergency Nursing" (EN) clinical practice were instructed, criticized and graded by three teachers from the university staff.

Methods: Following their clinical practice the students filled-out a questionnaire, in which they evaluated the feedback provided by their teachers, the contribution of the practice to their professional skills and their personal performance. Additionally, the teachers' grades of students' achievements were collected. Accuracy of students' self-evaluation was calculated as the arithmetical difference between the students' grades and the teachers' grades.

Results: The mean grades of positive and negative feedback were 74.5/100 and 70.7/100, respectively. Higher-quality positive feedback was associated with higher teachers' grade (p=0.027) and with "very high" evaluation of the contribution of the practice (p=0.022). Higher-quality positive feedback was associated with student's over-self-evaluation (p=0.02), whereas higher-quality negative feedback was associated with more accurate self-evaluation (p=0.015).

Conclusions: High-quality positive feedback is associated with higher grades, higher contribution of the clinical practice to the student and over-self-evaluation whereas high-quality negative feedback is related to an accurate self evaluation of the students' performance. Teachers should pay more attention to administering high-quality positive and negative feedback.

Keywords: Negative feedback; Nursing clinical practice; Nursing students; Positive feedback; Self-evaluation.