Standardizing nurse practitioner clinical education: The Cognitive Preceptorship Model

Background

Though preparing autonomous advanced nursing providers who are ready to care for complex clients in a variety of settings after graduation is necessary to achieve clinical competence, NP clinical education activities used to achieve competencies are greatly variable and hard to measure. The quality of students' clinical experiences impacts students' achievement of clinical competence (CC) and achieving CC is important for the NPs to successfully transition to practice after graduation.

Aim

The purpose of this project is to apply the Cognitive Preceptorship Model (CPM) to design, describe, and explain the clinical activities that are NP role-specific, that scaffold from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), and National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties (NONPF) competencies and that help NP students achieve competencies.

Method

CPM concepts, AACN and NONPF competencies were cross analyzed. NP role-specific clinical teaching and learning activities were designed, described, and displayed in a table.

Conclusion

AACN and NONPF competencies provide the foundation for competencies-based education, which is necessary to standardize NP students' learning outcomes; however, how these outcomes should be achieved in a clinical learning environment (CLE) should also be standardized. Using role-specific theoretical literature that is well aligned with the role competencies to guide the designing of clinical activities should assist in standardizing NP evidence-based clinical education.