Innovative Point Assignment for Clinical Attendance in an Associate Degree Program

Students gain experience and meet learning outcomes through clinical experiences in health care settings. However, increased student absences threatened the completion of these outcomes within the associate degree in nursing program. In response to increased student absences, and faculty maintenance of fair expectations of all students, a pilot project was developed to initiate an innovative clinical point assignment system. Within this pilot project, students earned points for attending clinical experiences as part of the total points earned for the course. Alternative options, challenges, opportunities, and the evaluation of the new clinical point assignment system are revealed. This pilot project greatly reduced absences, eliminated make-up days, and resulted in cost savings to the college.