Rater Training and Assessment of Student Clinical Judgment: An Experimental Inquiry.

Abstract

Aim: This study used the Lasater Clinical Judgment Rubric (LCJR) to determine if rater training influenced interrater reliability.

Background: There is a call for nurse educators to provide increased rigor in performance evaluation of students' clinical judgments prior to graduation. However, evaluating student clinical performance is challenging, and there is limited research on best practices for training raters on student performance.

Method: An experimental pre- and posttest comparative study was conducted with a convenience sample of 34 nurse educators.

Results: Orientation to the evaluation instrument (LCJR) and two training sessions were minimally effective in improving interrater reliability compared to the expert rater benchmark range. Rater decay occurred with both the intervention and control groups.

Conclusion: Rater training is crucial to ensure fair and consistent student clinical judgment assessments. The findings suggest that a team of expert raters should define and set rating benchmarks prior to student assessments.