A Tool to Evaluate How to Learn from Experience in Clinical Settings

Abstract

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to develop and validate an evaluation tool for the process of learning from experience in a clinical practicum at the post-RN baccalaureate level. This complex process, consisting of integrated cognitive, affective, and behavioral components, is the basis of a person's "good functioning" in a learning environment. To assess the process of learning during a clinical experience provides adult students with a mirror of thenown way to learn from their particular experience; the results can then enhance their abilities of learning-how-to-learn from any experience. The tool was developed during doctoral research following the works of Kolb (1984) and Chevrier and Charbonneau (1990, 1991a, 1991b). The psychometric evidence of the tool supports its initial value as a component of an integrated formative evaluation strategy. This reflective type of process evaluation helps students link theory to practice, think critically, and intervene creatively and professionally in very complex situations.