Should faculty make clinical site visits for students or rely on clinical preceptor evaluation?

Evaluating the use of social media to conduct clinical performance reviews of advanced practice nursing students

“…[2,3] Finally, it has been said that distance education can result in better communication between faculty, students, and clinical preceptors, and can increase the ease of evaluation of student performance, clinical preceptor effectiveness and clinical site appropriateness. [3][4][5] Those speaking out against the offering of distance learning options for nursing argue that there is no replacement for direct observation of nursing students in the clinical setting by faculty due to a lack of evaluation consistency across clinical preceptors, coupled with their lack of training as an academic. [4,5] Since the year 2000, when online distance education began in earnest, many professional organizations have vocalized their position towards this new educational option.…”

“…[3][4][5] Those speaking out against the offering of distance learning options for nursing argue that there is no replacement for direct observation of nursing students in the clinical setting by faculty due to a lack of evaluation consistency across clinical preceptors, coupled with their lack of training as an academic. [4,5] Since the year 2000, when online distance education began in earnest, many professional organizations have vocalized their position towards this new educational option. Torn between a mission to educate the large number of advanced practice nurses needed to care for an aging population with increasingly complex health and diversity issues, and concerns related to a move away from the traditions inherent in clinical education of nurses, nurse leaders were provided with a trending topic for debate.…”

“…If so, little has been done to investigate the impact of these meth-ods on faculty evaluation of student clinical performance review. [3][4][5] The purpose of this quality improvement project was to evaluate advanced practice registered nursing (APRN) students and clinical preceptor perceptions of the feasibility and benefit of a real time student clinical performance review utilizing social media strategies which incorporated live audio and video feed.…”