Localization a New Tool for Assessing Nursing Students Clinical Learning Environment in Iran

This chapter aims to evaluate the validity and reliability of the CLECS questionnaire (a questionnaire for assessing the clinical learning environment) in nursing students. Continuous evaluations of clinical education and learning in nursing require the use of valid and reliable instruments. Clinical education is a vital part of pre-registration nursing education programs, accounting for up to half of the nursing student training duration.

This was a psychometric cross-sectional study of 116 nursing students. The developer granted permission to translate, validate, and utilize the CLECS by email communication with the corresponding author. The CLECS was translated into Persian. After performing the translation and cultural adaptation steps, the psychometric procedure was carried out. The reliability was evaluated using Cronbach's alpha. Through convergence, discriminant, and confirmatory factor analysis, the instrument validity was evaluated.

The findings of the confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the current questionnaire was 6-dimensional and confirmed the fit of the final model. The majority of the survey's questions lacked strong differential validity. The nursing process and the holism aspects had the highest and lowest means, respectively.

On the basis of the results of this study, CLECS has strong validity and reliability and, with the exception of discriminant validity, can be used to assess the learning environment of undergraduate nursing students.