Nursing student's views toward quality of theoretical and clinical nursing education: A qualitative Study

Improvement of the quality of nursing education involves continuous assessment of the current condition in order to improve the quality. The students who received educational services are the best source to recognize the existing problems in the education. This study aims to describe the experiences and viewpoints of nursing students on quality of nursing education In this qualitative study, 40 senior nursing students were selected according to purposeful sampling method. Then, eight focus group interviews were performed. All interviews were transcribed and analyzed according to content analysis method. Using thematic analysis, a significant number of preliminary themes and three main themes each with few other sub-themes, were emerged. The main themes were; “theoretical education”, “clinical education” and “the gap between theoretical and clinical education”. It seems that theoretical and clinical education needs more comprehensive educational approaches to integrate knowledge and practice. We suggest that clinical assessment perform by faculties of nursing schools in clinical settings.