Impact of differences in clinical training methods on generic skills development of nursing students: A text mining analysis study

BACKGROUND: Discussions and investigations are being conducted in regard to the question of how, instead of acquiring specific kinds of expertise at university, students can instead be taught “generic skills,” which are the competencies for engaging in the everyday life of a working adult. OBJECTIVES: This survey was aimed at assessing the impact of clinical practical training on generic skills from the perspective of student's own perceptions of personal growth. And we compared different three nursing colleges of the practical training methods to investigate the associations between generic skills and practical training methods. DESIGN: A text mining analysis study. SETTINGS AND PARTICIPANTS: The study was conducted with the participation of Japanese third-year students who had completed clinical practical training at three nursing colleges. Study period was December 2016 to February 2017. There were 242 participants in total, and valid responses were obtained from 216 participants. METHODS: We distributed an anonymous self-administered questionnaire. Data collected from open-ended responses was subjected to analysis using text mining methods. RESULTS: A total of 2,903 words were extracted as the result of analyzing text data for a total of 568 sentences. From the patterns in which the extracted words appeared, we were able to classify details reported by students about the areas where they recognized personal growth into nine categories. We found “teacher,” “now,” and “clinical instructor” among the characteristic words for School A, as well as “learn,” “records,” and “planning.” The terms extracted for School B included “acquired,” “communication,” and “consideration.” Terms extracted for School C included “perform,” “human,” and “action + can.” CONCLUSION: Students perceive more growth in terms of generic skill competencies than in terms of expert knowledge or techniques. Project-based learning is associated with students' “ability to discover problems,” while experience-based practical training is associated with students' “ability to sustain action.”