THE EFFECT OF IMPLEMENTING COMPETENCY BASED EDUCATION MODEL ON NURSING STUDENTS CLINICAL PERFORMANCE IN CORONARY CARE UNIT

To make a development in nursing education, it’s necessary to evaluate the processes of the clinical education and become informed about modern executive models. In this regard, Competency Based Education Model (CBEM) is a new educational model that aims to reach desired clinical role. This study aims to determine the effect of implementing competency-based education model on nursing students’ clinical performance in Coronary Care Unit (CCU). In this quasi-experimental study with post-test design 34 senior nursing students, who met the inclusion criteria, were selected through census and divided into two groups as control and experimental. The control group received conventional education and the experiment group received competency based education for their CCU course. The students’ clinical performance score was measured through 3 researcher-made data collecting instrument (clinical performance assessment checklist, self-report questionnaire and multiple choice test). The collected data was analyzed by SPSS (16) software using descriptive and inferential statistics (Chi-square, independent t-test and Mann-Whitney U test). The results indicated that clinical performance of students in the experimental group was significantly higher than students in the control group both in terms of specific clinical performance (P<0.001) and generic clinical performance (P=0.001). Competency-based education model more than the conventional model improved the students’ generic and specific clinical performance. Therefore, it is recommended that nursing educational officials improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of clinical courses by taking advantages of this educational model and modifying the nursing curriculum based on modern educational strategies.