2007 Volume 27 Issue 4 Pages 4_33-4_41
Purpose: The purpose of the present study was to elucidate the effects of the educational infrastructure on the metacognitive clinical learning environment of students in baccalaureate nursing programs.
Method: The subjects were 205 fourth-year students in baccalaureate nursing programs of two colleges in Japan. Causal relationships between educational infrastructure and clinical learning environment were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The clinical learning environment was assessed using the Clinical Learning Environment Diagnostic Inventory (CLEDI), which measures the affective, perceptual, symbolic, behavioral, and reflective aspects of clinical learning environments.
Results: The standardized coefficient between educational infrastructure and the clinical learning environment was 0.97. “Academic-clinical collaboration” had the highest correlation among observed variables for educational infrastructure. In addition, educational infrastructure was strongly correlated with “affective clinical learning environment” and moderately correlated with other subscales of the CLEDI.
Conclusion: The above findings suggest that enhanced systems for academic-clinical collaboration may lead to improvements in the clinical learning environment of students, and that effects on the affective clinical learning environment must be considered.
