‘Experiencing one thing and saying another’–Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) of nursing students’ competence and challenge during clinical placements compared with retrospective interviews

Abstract

Clinical placements are essential to nursing education and understanding students’ challenges in the clinical context is important for educators. Nevertheless, few studies have investigated students’ experiences in the clinical context itself but rely on methods which ask participants to generalize their clinical experiences retrospectively. Objectives: This study aimed to explore nursing students’ experiences of clinical activities during and after clinical placements with a focus on feelings of competence and challenge. A particular interest was on comparing momentary assessments in the clinical context with retrospective interview data. Methods: Smartphones were used for ecological momentary assessment of students’ experiences of clinical activities during five-week placements at 21 nursing homes. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. Interviews were conducted after the placements. Results: 575 responses were obtained showing final-year nursing students rated their competence significantly higher and challenge significantly lower than first-year students. An analysis of the quantitative data using the four-channel flow model showed that first-year students’ activities were to a significantly higher extent associated with flow and anxiety, compared to those of final-year students. Conversely, the final-year students’ activities were to a significantly higher extent associated with boredom than those of first-year students. The analysis of the students’ reflections resulted in five themes: Specific activities are challenging, Lack of challenge, Learning and developing, Reflects critically on competence, and Arrangement of the clinical placement. Discussion: Final-year nursing students were significantly less challenged during the placements compared to first-year students. There was overlap in how students described their clinical experiences during and after placements, but there were also striking differences. The first-year students were overwhelmed by the challenges during the placements but viewed these experiences as valuable learning experiences afterwards. The final-year students also described several challenging clinical activities during the placements but none of these challenges were brought up afterwards in the interviews and instead a lack of challenge was emphasized. Momentary assessment thus enabled capturing data about clinical activities which may be overlooked by retrospective methods.