Attached
Background: Student perspectives of clinical preparedness have been studied in the literature, but the viewpoint
of supervisors is limited. Hence, the aim was to examine the perspective of supervisors on the characteristics of
health professional students important for preparedness for clinical learning.
Methods: This was a descriptive, questionnaire-based, cross-sectional study conducted at three higher education
institutions in Malaysia. A previously published questionnaire with 62 characteristics was adopted with modifications
after pre-testing. Descriptive analysis was completed for the demographic data. The sample was grouped based
on health profession, clinical practice experience and teaching experience for further analysis. Non-parametric
Kruskal-Wallis test was selected to evaluate differences in mean ranks to assess the null hypothesis that the medians
are equal across the groups. Kruskal-Wallis post-hoc pair wise comparison was performed on samples with
significant differences across samples.
Results: The sample was comprised of 173 supervisors from medicine (55, 32%), pharmacy (84, 48%) and nursing
(34, 20%). The majority (63%) of the supervisors were currently in professional practice. A high percentage (40%) of
supervisors had less than 4 years of teaching experience. The highest theme ratings were for willingness (6.00) and
professionalism (5.90). There was a significant difference (p < 0.05) in the medians, among medicine, pharmacy and
nursing professional speciality for willingness (5.70, 6.00 and 6.00), professionalism (5.70, 5.90 and 6.15),
communication and interaction (5.42, 5.67 and 6.00), personal attributes (5.42, 5.71 and 6.02) and the professional
and interpersonal skills (5.50, 5.63 and 6.00) themes. Post-hoc analysis showed a significant difference (p < 0.05)
between medicine and nursing groups in the willingness (5.70 and 6.00), professionalism (5.70 and 6.15) and
personal attributes (5.42 and 6.02) themes. Supervisors who are currently in practice had given high ratings
compared to other groups. There were no significant differences observed within groups with different level of
teaching experiences.
Conclusions: All supervisors rated professionalism and willingness as the most important characteristics followed
by personal attributes. Further strengthening learning opportunities related to these characteristics in the
curriculum may improve the students’ preparedness in clinical learning.
