Logging the clinical learning experience: creating a dynamic teaching and learning environment through log-based supervision and student self-assessment

This study describes the implementation of a supervision and assessment system based on a clinical log writing strategy, involving second year student nurses in two surgical units.  The aim of the clinical log was to promote student nurses’ personal growth and to provide a database for competency assessment.  The log system was designed as a collaborative and dialogical strategy, committing all parties involved to document the teaching and learning process. Faculty and nurse supervisors monitored and verified the students’ progress by documenting supervision and formative assessment in the students’ logs, and students submitted evidence about their learning process and self-evaluation. Summative assessment was conducted through tripartite conferences at the end of the clinical placements. Together, faculty, clinical staff and student considered the evidence presented in the log in order to establish the student's level of clinical competency.  Using clinical logs to promote personal growth as well as to assess student performance in clinical placements is a controversial issue in the literature as critics argue that these aims are incompatible.  The log system was pilot tested with 14 students expanding into an action research project including 28 other students during the second year of the trial period. The log project was evaluated at end of the second year based on a semi-structured questionnaire designed by faculty and additional evaluative material such as journals, field notes and minutes from meetings with clinical staff. The general consensus among faculty and nursing staff was that the log-based supervision and assessment strategy had improved the quality of supervision and created a more dynamic teaching and learning environment, enhancing the students’ possibility to develop personally as well as professionally.