An Insight into the Students' Perspective of a Nuclear Medicine Clinical Education Program

Abstract

Clinical education of Medical Radiation Science students is crucial to the quality of their learning and preparedness for entry to the workplace as a practitioner. The assessment process must direct the Students' learning and accurately evaluate their clinical performance and measure understanding. To ensure quality, a review of the assessment process must take place. Obtaining the Students' perspective provides useful data. A questionnaire was administered to final year Nuclear Medicine students. The questionnaire consisted of 11 items. Quantitative analysis was conducted on the close-ended data and a thematic analysis was performed on open-ended items. Students perceived a variation in the ability of the clinical assessment tools to accurately assess their performance. The Observed Skills Clinical Assessment (OSCA) was perceived to be the least indicative of their clinical ability and understanding. The perceived level of agreed accuracy by clinical and university supervisors was equal but the level of disagreement varied. No statistical difference was found. Students felt well prepared for entry to the workplace. A strength of clinical education was the clinical placement where students could apply theory to the real setting, a weakness was a lack of reliability of assessors. This study has provided some initial data to assist educators in improving the quality of their program. The limitations identified in the assessment tools in this study will provide a basis for informed decisions for change, to ensure that best practice is upheld.