How does the Nurse Educator Measure Caring?

Abstract

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to advance worldwide scholarship of nursing education by introducing a novel approach to evaluate nursing students’ level of human caring. We propose an innovative tool that can be used by nurse educators to measure the construct of caring. Caring encompasses three dimensions: intentionality, relationality, and responsivity. The dimensions are drawn from theoretical, practice, and education literatures. The innovative tool, named the Caring Interaction Inventory, exposes nursing students to audio–video recordings of complex real-life healthcare encounters. Nursing students are required to choose from several options, caring behaviors that would best address holistic patient needs. Caring behaviors chosen for a given healthcare encounter and the rationale provided by the student, enable the nurse educator to evaluate the student’s caring in terms of intentionality, relationality, and responsivity. The sum total of the student’s performance within each dimension constitutes the student’s overall caring grade.