Evaluation of the Lasater Clinical Judgment Rubric

Abstract

Clinical judgment is an elusive concept that educators struggle to present and assess. Benner's seminal work in 1984 and continuing work in 1996 of novice to expert along with Tanner's continuing work on clinical judgment provides a model of "thinking in action" that focuses on four phases: noticing, interpreting, responding, and reflecting. This model served as the basis for the Lasater Clinical Judgment Rubric (LCJR) that was developed to evaluate a single patient encounter requiring clinical judgment using simulation. Using Tanner's Clinical Judgment Model (2006), the LCJR incorporates the concepts of effective noticing, interpreting, responding, and reflecting. Using rubric scoring, this tool simplistically allows for prospective analysis of a clinical encounter. Because simulation is a teaching method frequently used in nursing schools, effective feedback is essential for student performance improvement.