Preparing Nursing Students for the Next Generation NCLEX® by Promoting Clinical Judgment Skills

Friday, July 26
Preparing Nursing Students for the Next Generation NCLEX® by Promoting Clinical Judgment Skills
Michele Gerwick, PhD, RN & Pam O’Harra DEd, RN
A Live Virtual Event • 12:50 – 3:45 PM (Central Time)
Recording available for 60 days post-event for CE

Nurses must be safe, competent practitioners who can effectively care for patients with complex health care needs. They need to be able to follow directions, prioritize care, make sound clinical decisions and problem solve appropriately. All these skills are necessary to make sound clinical judgments. After graduation, students need to successfully pass the NCLEX®. In 2023, the NCLEX® exam was changed to better assess decision making and clinical judgment. To better prepare our students, faculty must incorporate NGN questions in all course exams and use teaching strategies that promote clinical judgment skills. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest study was conducted with senior level students during the Fall 2023 semester. The purposes of this study were to 1) improve students’ clinical judgment skills by utilizing a NGN Quizzing tool to improve student’s perceptions of their problem-solving abilities 2) improve student’s clinical decision-making skills and 3) prepare students for NGN. Improving clinical judgment skills will allow for an easier transition into the graduate nurse role, leading to enhanced patient healthcare quality.