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Abstract New economic realities and rapid shifts in labor markets are fundamentally changing education systems around the world, with urgent need for high quality education. Clinical education is an important aspect in professional nursing curriculum. The basic principle in theoretical and practical nursing education is to prepare students to provide effective and appropriate care. Clinical nurse teachers are expected to liaise between nursing education and clinical practice in supporting and monitoring students‘ progress and facilitating theoretical and clinical teaching. For this, they need professional practice standards and these are lacking in Technical Nursing Institutes affiliated to the universities and ministry of health. This study aims to develop and validate standards for the clinical teachers‘ performance at technical nursing Institutes and assess its applicability through assessing clinical teachers‘ performance; developing standards for performance of clinical teachers; determining the validity of the proposed standards; and assessing their applicability. Summary 133 The study was conducted at three Technical Nursing Institutes affiliated to Ain-Shams and Tanta Universities, and Imbaba Technical Nursing Institute affiliated to the Ministry of Health using a methodological design. It involved 83 clinical teachers for preliminary assessment of performance and 84 others for applicability, in addition to a group of 60 nursing experts for validation of the proposed standards. The data collection tools included a performance observation checklist, a validity opinionnaire form, and an applicability observation checklist. A pilot study was carried out to test the feasibility and reliability of the preliminary performance checklist. The fieldwork included performance assessment, standards preparation and validation, and assessment of the applicability of the standards. The researcher developed standards based on pertinent information from the literature, and in view of the results of clinical teachers‘ performance assessment, and conducted training in their application. It consisted of eight standards with 28 criteria. The fieldwork lasted from October 2016 to May 2019. Summary 134 The main study findings were as following. The clinical teachers in the performance sample were mostly 25 years or older, 95.2% were females, and 56.6% had a bachelor degree. Clinical teachers‘ adequacy of performance in the assessment phase was 72.0%. Clinical teachers‘ adequacy of performance in the planning phase ranged between 68.7% for preparing the learning environment to 91.6% for the general objectives of the training plan. The implementation adequate performance ranged between 75.6% for preparing learning environment, and 88.0% for the performance before starting practical lesson. The evaluation had the lowest percentage of adequate performance (68.7%). In total, 67.5% of the clinical teachers were having total adequate performance. Summary 135 The majority of the experts were females (96.7%), mostly lecturers (53.3%), from nursing administration (50.0%). Their median experience was 18.5 years. There was generally high agreement of experts upon the face and content validity of the developed standards. Based on the experts‘ opinions, three criteria were omitted, ending up with 8 standards with 25 criteria. The applicability of the proposed validated standards was tested on 84 clinical teachers whose age was mostly 30 years or older, with a majority of females (94.0%), married; 53.6% had a bachelor degree, and their experience mostly 10 years or more. The applicability was highest (94.0%) for the fourth standard and lowest (52.4%) for the sixth standard. Overall, there was a high percentage (83.3%) of applicability of the proposed standards. The applicability of the proposed standards was significantly different among clinical teachers‘ work institutes (p=0.03). Summary 136 In conclusion valid applicable standards were developed for clinical teachers‘ performance in Technical Nursing Institutes. The learning environment is the factor governing applicability of these standards. The study recommends the application of the new standards in all Technical Nursing Institutes, with orientation programs for the clinical nurse teachers for compliance with the new standards. These standards can be used in monitoring the performance of the clinical teachers, and should be adopted by the quality assurance departments in these institutions. The administration of the Technical Nursing Institutes should provide optimum learning environment with all the equipment and supplies required in the implementation of the standards. The impact of the application of the new standards on nursing students‘ achievements should be studied. |