STUDENT EVALUATION OF CLINICAL EDUCATION ENVIRONMENT

Research Question 4
Are further revisions needed to improve the validity, reliability, or ease of administration and
analysis of the SECEE inventory?
Removal of SECEE Items. Discussion of the previous three research questions has
included several potential areas for improving the comprehensive nature of the inventory—
adding items to improve scale reliability and addressing student-raised clinical learning
environment issues. In addition, the inventory may be improved by removing or rewording a
few items that either had low item-scale correlations or were not supported through student
narrative comments. Items number 23 and 29, “the environment provided an atmosphere
conducive to learning” and “I was successful in meeting most of my learning goals”, seemed to
be rather broad in comparison with the specificity of other inventory items, and were not
specifically mentioned in student narrative comments. It may be beneficial to replace these two
items with more specific items such as those identified by students in their narrative comments.
Two additional inventory items that were not directly identified by students in their
narrative comments related to feeling overwhelmed with the responsibilities of the student role,
and the presence of clear communication of the student’s patient care responsibilities. The
“overwhelmed” item did not appear to fit well in any of the scales. Perhaps these items should
be removed from the inventory during the next revision, or reworded into a statement such as “I
felt prepared (or unprepared) for my role in this clinical setting”.
The last two inventory items that were not directly addressed by student narrative responses
related to students helping each other in the clinical environment and to the instructor
encouraging students to help each other and share their learning experiences. Although student
narrative responses did not support inclusion of these two items in the forced-choice portion of
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