Professional registered nursing is an essential part of the health care system and student nurses need experimental learning with actual patients to learn to practice as a nurse. The health care system has changed dramatically and nursing schools have decreasing access to the health care agencies. The clinical educational experience develops clinical competency or nursing skills; and prepares nursing students for entry into the nursing profession.

The purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes of second year associate degree nursing students and full and part-time faculty towards their clinical educational experiences which would include clinical teaching and learning experiences and clinical competence as well as the importance of the clinical educational experience for preparation into nursing practice. Furthermore, the study sought to explore the attitudes of different gender and ethnic student groups represented and student and faculty for language in the represented groups.

The Clinical Instructional Experience Questionnaire developed by Hickey (2005) was modified and used for this study. The survey was used to measure the effectiveness of the actual clinical experiences and the importance of these experiences in the development of clinical competence from the perspectives of second year nursing students and faculty from one associate degree nursing program. Additional information was used from the open-ended questions from the students and faculty to answer research questions five and six and demographic information was also obtained.

Data indicated that there was a difference in the students and faculty attitudes on the actual clinical experiences and clinical competency and what the students and faculty considered important.

The mean scores on the subscales on both the actual and importance rating were high, indicating a positive clinical experience. The importance scales were higher for both students and faculty indicating a need that the actual clinical experience did not meet their needs for beginning nursing practice.

Due to the small number of respondents, gender or ethnic needs for the students or language differences for students and faculty were not analyzed. The open-ended questions were supportive of the quantitative data analysis indicating a need for more clinical time to learn to think and practice as a nurse. Interpersonal relationships were very important to positive clinical educational experiences for the students and faculty. Data indicated working with staff nurses who were positive role models helped the students develop clinical competency skills and helped the faculty provide positive clinical experiences for the students. Several students indicated that following a nurse for the day and working in the intensive care units helped them to develop nursing skills. More clinical time, pharmacology, and medication experiences were also identified as needing improvement in this nursing program.

Findings support the need for more clinical time and for improvement of the clinical educational experience. Further research is needed to change the clinical educational experiences to improve the nursing practice of entry level nurses.