Clinical education is a cornerstone of undergraduate nursing education programs. Although protecting patient safety in clinical learning experiences is a standard of practice, no standard definition of the unsafe student exists. The purpose of this study was to describe the viewpoints of undergraduate student nurses and their clinical educators about unsafe clinical student practices. Using Q methodology, 57 students and 14 clinical educators sorted 39 unsafe student practice statements. These statements were generated from an integrated review of nursing and related literature and two undergraduate student focus groups. The use of centroid factor analysis with varimax rotation produced three dimensions of unsafe student practices. An unsafe student was characterized by his/her Compromised Professional Accountability, Incomplete Praxis, and Clinical Disengagement. A shared attribute among these three features was violated professional integrity. While students affective, cognitive, and praxis competencies were priority elements in the conceptualization of unsafe student practice, this study also identified the salient role of educators as active participants in preparation of safe practitioners.

Ed. by Andrusyszyn, Mary-Anne / Cragg, Catherine Elizabeth / Goldenberg, Dolly / Iwasiw, Carroll Louise / Maltby, Hendrika J.
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Views on Unsafe Nursing Students in Clinical Learning
Laura A Killam1 / Phyllis Montgomery2 / Florence Loyce Luhanga3 / Peter Adamic4 / Lorraine M Carter5
1Laurentian University, laura.anne.killam@gmail.com
2Laurentian University, pmontgomery@laurentian.ca
3Laurentian University, fluhanga@laurentian.ca
4Laurentian University, padamic@cs.laurentian.ca
5Laurentian University, lorrainec@nipissingu.ca
Citation Information: International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship. Volume 7, Issue 1, Pages –, ISSN (Online) 1548-923X, DOI: 10.2202/1548-923X.2026, October 2010
Publication History:
- Published Online:
- 2010-10-13
Keywords: unsafe student; clinical education; undergraduate nursing education; Q methodology


















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