Background:

The changing student population, integration of technology, increasing demands on faculty for scholarly work, the changing role of the nurse, the dramatic changes in health care and health care delivery, and many other factors all converge to challenge faculty to ensure that curricula and learning experiences continually prepare competent nurses who can practice effectively. These learning experiences occur in the classroom, the laboratory and the clinical area, and faculty are responsible for assessing and evaluating what students have learned in each of these settings. To a large extent, assessment and evaluation of student learning in each of these settings has remained unchanged, and faculty continue to rely heavily on multiple-choice tests, nursing care plans, and the performance of patient care skills. Research in higher education, however, now provides faculty with an enormous number of ways to assess student learning, and nursing faculty must be equipped to use such strategies appropriately and effectively. The Evaluation of Learning Advisory Council (ELAC) believes that nursing faculty would be supported in their work related to assessing and evaluating student learning that occurs in various settings if they had more information about designing and using innovative assessment and evaluation approaches. This Task Group, therefore, has been created to facilitate this work.

Purpose of the Task Group:

The purpose of this Task Group is to advance evidence-based practices related to relevant and effective assessment and evaluation of student learning in classroom, laboratory, and clinical settings.

Specific Tasks to be Completed:

1. 1. Complete a comprehensive review of the literature related to the assessment and evaluation of student learning in classroom, laboratory, and clinical settings.
2. 2. Complete a critical synthesis of research and other scholarly evidence related to the assessment and evaluation of student learning in classroom, laboratory, and clinical settings.
3. 3. Submit this critical synthesis to Nursing Education Perspectives for possible publication.
4. 4. Collaborate with the ELAC Task Group on Evaluation in All Domains of Learning to prepare a position statement for submission to the NLN Board of Governors regarding the assessment and evaluation of student learning (a) in classroom, laboratory, and clinical settings and (b) in all domains of learning, including the use of standardized testing in nursing education.
5. 5. Propose strategies that will assist nursing faculty teaching in all types of programs to appropriately and effectively use innovative approaches to assessing and evaluating student learning in classroom, laboratory, and clinical settings.
6. 6. Add information about the assessment and evaluation of student learning in classroom, laboratory, and clinical settings to NLN’s literature database in order to expand the repository of evidence on this topic.
7. 7. Monitor an electronic community on the topic of assessing and evaluating student learning in classroom, laboratory, and clinical settings.

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