Inter-Rater Agreement and Competency Gaps in QSEN: A Comparative Study of Student Nurse Self-Assessment and Nurse Educator Evaluation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.64397/nepj.v01i02.2025.a13Keywords:
Competency-Bases Education, Comparative Study, Quality and Safety Education for Nurses, Students, NursingAbstract
Introduction: Integrating of Quality and Safety Education in Nursing (QSEN) competencies in nursing education aims to support advancing education in nursing as well as ongoing initiatives to improve and safeguard health care quality and patient safety.
Aim: To determine the level of competencies of student nurses to policy guidelines on quality and safety education.
Methods: The study utilized descriptive-comparative design, employing convenience sampling. It involves 213 Student Nurses and 83 Nurse Educators using a highly valid and reliable modified QSEN survey. This study was conducted at the University of Hail, Hail City, Saudi Arabias. Data collection was conducted from August 1 to September 30, 2024.
Results: There is a very strong agreement (≈0.96) in ranking the competencies. While both groups rated to Teamwork and Collaboration as the highest competency, participants rated Evidence Based Practice (EBP), Informatics, and Quality Improvement (QI) as the lowest rated competencies. Most notably, it is only in the Patient Centered Care where a difference by one demographic (gender) is shown, as male (student nurses) respondents rated their competency higher (p = 0.032), and a substantial magnitude difference in EBP scores is observed (NE 2.93 vs SN 2.73) which indicates a gap in perceived confidence of the student.
Conclusion: While student nurses and educators’ hand in hand recognize achievement across the six QSEN domains as confirming basic content mastery, the unrelentingly low scores in EBP, Informatics, and QI unquestionably warrant fundamental changes in the curriculum. These changes need to improve mastery in these areas, and more importantly, confidence evident in the EBP score gap so that graduates will be ready to practice with these skills.
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