The Journal of Medical Education and Development

Introduction: The educational supervisors should attempt to plan and implement nurses’ development programs according to the principles of educational process. The present study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of educational supervisors from the viewpoints of clinical nurses and nurse managers in 2007.

Methods : 97 clinical nurses and 33 nurse managers in educational hospitals of Yazd participated in this cross sectional study. The questionnaire including 56 items related to expected professional competencies of educational supervisor was prepared and its validity and reliability was confirmed. Overall Cronbach’s alpha was 0.97 ranging from 0.77 to 0.96 for different dimensions which indicated internal consistency of the questionnaire.

Results: The results showed 42.3% of nurses considered the function of their hospital as effective, 52.6% as ineffective, and 5.2% as relatively effective. One hundred percent of metrons considered the function of educational supervisors as effective. All the educational supervisors considered their function effective. The study samples reported that all the listed criteria were important in the effectiveness of educational supervisors’ function.

Conclusion: In order to improve the effectiveness of educational supervisors’ function their management and leadership competencies should be developed. Competency-based approach is suggested in preparing educational supervisors for implementing the educational process from the problem solving skills. This will help nurse managers to make their work environments a learning and educational institute.