A Survey on Turkish nursing students' perception of clinical learning environment and its association with academic motivation and clinical decision making

Background: Nursing education is a process that includes theoretical and practical learning and requires the acquisition of theoretical knowledge and skill. Nursing students need a good clinical practice environment in order to apply their knowledge and skills due to the fact that the clinical practice settings play an important role in the nursing profession. Objectives: This study was carried out in an effort to explore nursing students' perception of the clinical learning environment and its association with academic motivation and clinical decision making. Design: A descriptive survey design was used. Setting: This study was conducted in Giresun University in Turkey. Participants: Participants were second-, third- and fourth-year undergraduate students (n = 222) in the Bachelor of Nursing Science Degree in the academic spring term of 2014-2015. Methods: The data was collected using the 'Clinical Learning Environment Scale', the 'Academic Motivation, and the 'The Clinical Decision Making in Nursing Scale'. Results: Of the respondents in this study, 45% of the students were second class, 30.6% of the students were third class and 24.3% of the students were fourth class. There was a statistically significant positive correlation found between the clinical learning environment and the nursing students' academic motivation (r = 0.182, p < .05). However, there was no correlation between the clinical learning environment and clinical decision making (r = 0.082, p > .05). Conclusion: One of the prerequisites for the training of qualified students is to provide nursing students with a qualified clinical environment. It was found that nursing students' academic motivation increased as the quality of their clinical learning environment improved. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.