Clinical reasoning on an assignment : perceptions of third year Baccalaureate nursing students

Baccalaureate nursing students must develop clinical reasoning skills in order to make sound clinical judgments. How students understand clinical reasoning is of interest to nurse educators. In a qualitative study, eight third-year nursing students were interviewed about their perceptions of clinical reasoning on a Clinical Judgment Exercise (CJE). An overarching theme of Over Time emerged from the data along with two themes: Understanding of Clinical Reasoning and Making Sense of the Assignment. The sub-themes that emerged were the same for each theme and were not knowing, knowing, applying knowing and valuing knowing. Conclusions were that student participants perceived: 1) understanding of clinical reasoning developed over time, 2) understanding of the patient’s problem deepened over the time of writing the assignment, 3) they were challenged by the complexity of the patient, 4) they were able to apply learning from the CJE to nursing practice and 5) writing the CJE was stressful.