Clinical Judgment Assessment in Nursing Education: Students’ Self‐Rated and Preceptors’ Score

Student competency assessment is a pillar of education, as it is necessary to determine students’ learning needs, including clinical judgment skills. This study aimed to compare self‐rated clinical judgment assessment results from students with those of their preceptors using the Indonesian version of the Lasater Clinical Judgment Rubric (LCJR‐INA). The research employed a comparative quantitative study design involving 210 final‐stage students actively enrolled in the nursing program at a university in Indonesia, using purposive sampling. The instrument used was the LCJR‐INA. Clinical judgment scores were compared using the Wilcoxon signed‐rank test, and to account for the nested data structure of students within preceptors, a linear mixed‐effects model with a random intercept for preceptors was applied. The results reveal a significant difference between student and preceptor scores, with students rating their clinical judgment abilities higher than their preceptors. Preceptor scores were not significantly related to student self‐assessment scores, and a sensitivity analysis using linear regression yielded similar results. A combination of assessments by both preceptors and students is recommended to provide a more realistic representation of students′ clinical judgment and to help preceptors identify additional support for students.