Introduction: More than half of the professionalization process of nursing students occurs in the clinic. Attention to clinical competence and satisfaction of education in nursing students is essential to solve clinical education problems.
Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the effect of the training based on “Kolb’s learning cycle” on satisfaction of education and clinical competence of nursing students.
Material and Methods: The present study is a quasi-experimental study that was performed in 2020-2021 on 50 Aja nursing students in selected military hospitals in Tehran. Data were collected using demographic data form, valid and reliable clinical competency and satisfaction of education questionnaires. In both intervention and control groups, the education satisfaction questionnaire were completed at the beginning and end of the internship course by students, whereas they completed the clinical competency questionnaire only at the end of the course. The students of the intervention group, were trained by the Kolb’s learning cycle method and the students of the control group were trained for 4 weeks and 5 days according to the usual routine. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 20.
Results: Before the intervention, there was no significant difference between two groups in the mean scores of satisfactions of education (P>0.05). After the intervention, the mean scores of satisfactions of education in both intervention and control groups were respectively 72.24±10.05 and 51.64±7.93 which was statistically considered significant (P<0.001). Regarding clinical competence, the mean in the intervention and control groups was respectively 204.52±12.14 and 185.08±9.30 which was statistically significant (P<0.001). In general, the mean scores obtained in the intervention group were higher than the control group.
Conclusion: Results showed, the education based on “Kolb learning cycle” leads to significant improvement in satisfaction of nursing students’ of education and clinical competency in internal-surgery internship unit. Therefore, it is suggested that nursing educators, use this educational method in clinical education.