Enhancing the authenticity of assessment in the Master of Nurse Practitioner Studies program through personal video capture technology

Master of Nurse Practitioner Studies (MNPracSt) students are senior clinical nurses who are supported in the student role by a clinical mentor, usually another Nurse Practitioner or a Physician. The challenges faced in the assessment of MNPracSt include the distance and external mode of the program delivery, the reliance on the clinical mentor’s assessment of the student performance and the inability of the MNPracSt Program Coordinator to verify the assessments which are made in geographically dispersed locations. This project is being implemented in phases, the first phase which is reported in this presentation aims to improve the authenticity of assessment through the use of Personal Video Capture technology. The technology is employed in order to improve pedagogical processes (assessment and learning activities), blend the physical and virtual environments and enhance the authenticity of assessment. MNPractSt students in the intervention group were issued with Flip Video Camcorders and undertook six assessment tasks - introduction to group, three formative assessments (respiratory, cardiology & abdominal physical assessments), one summative assessment (head to toe physical assessment) and an oral viva using this technology. The outcomes and experiences of intervention group students were compared to other MNPracSt students who only used the technology for the initial introduction to the group assessment task. Data is being collected at three points at mid and end of semester and at six months post intervention in order to assess the impact of the technology through the Four Lenses of Blending enabling, enhancing, transforming and sustaining (Dziuban, Hartman and Moskal, 2006). This presentation will report on the implementation and preliminary results of this phase of project