360-Degree evaluation: Towards a comprehensive, integrated assessment of performance on clinical placement in nursing degrees: A descriptive observational study.

Background: The assessment of the acquisition of clinical competencies is a critical issue for nursing students. 360-degree evaluations are a widespread practice in professional competency assessment and can be applied to the learning/teaching process of future nurses.

Objectives: To determine the effectiveness of the implementation of a 360-degree evaluation proposal for assessing the competencies acquired by third-year nursing students during their clinical placements.

Design: A mixed-methods design was used with a primary component (a cross-sectional descriptive observational design) and a parallel qualitative component.

Participants: Sixty-seven third-year nursing students from a public university in Madrid, Spain, who were undertaking their clinical placements during seven weeks in medical/surgical units in hospital settings.

Methods: This study was conducted between September 2017 and May 2018. Quantitative data were obtained using assessment tools specifically developed for this 360-degree evaluation proposal. Qualitative information was collected from two focus groups, one with students and one with teaching staff. A descriptive analysis of the quantitative data was conducted. Qualitative data were studied using a thematic analysis.

Results: The mean scores for each of the items in the 360-degree evaluation were high, with the highest grades being observed in the evaluations made by peers and patients (a mean of 9.1 out of 10.0). On average, the 360-degree evaluation method yielded grades 0.067 percentage points higher than did the previous evaluation method (p ≤ 0.001). Students and teaching staff encountered difficulties in the evaluations made by users/families and other members of the healthcare team (nursing assistants and physicians), although they rated the overall proposal as being very powerful in terms of educational value.

Conclusions: The 360-degree evaluation method is an innovative, motivating, and integrating approach to the acquisition of competencies with a focus on excellence.