Students' Perceptions of a Poem to Evaluate Learning: A Qualitative Study

BACKGROUND: How best to use poetry in nursing education remains uncertain. This study explored students' perceptions of incorporating a poem into a final examination to evaluate learning in an advanced physical assessment course. METHOD: Qualitative design and method were used to collect and analyze data retrieved from private interviews with seven graduate nursing students. RESULTS: The themes were Being There, Think More, and Feeling Rushed. Students recommended the strategy as a measure of learning because it simulated a real patient encounter and made them think at a deeper level than other traditional approaches used to evaluating learning. CONCLUSION: Poetry might engage nursing students in thinking critically and compassionately and be closer in touch with real-time nursing care than other traditionally used methods to evaluate nursing practice. More research is needed to validate poetry's best fit in nursing curricula. [J Nurs Educ. 2017;56(10):628-632.].