title: Program outcome data: what do we measure? What does it mean? How does it lead to improvement?
abstract: Outcome evaluation in nursing education has moved away from the long-held focus on student behaviors and skills at graduation to include student traits--for example, critical thinking and clinical decision-making capability, satisfaction data, standardized testing results, and myriad other information that can be used to assess the overall quality of an educational program. This article describes one college of nursing's multi-trait, multi-method model for program outcomes evaluation. The authors include a brief discussion of the way in which multi-trait, multi-method evaluation is integrated with the college's process for continuous quality improvement.
authors.affiliation: West Suburban College of Nursing, Oak Park, IL 60302, USA.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Dulski
authors.forename: Maureen
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kelly
authors.forename: V Susan
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Carroll
mesh_terms: D004506:Education, Nursing / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D007087:Illinois; D019982:Organizational Case Studies; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D011786:Quality Control; D013223:Statistics as Topic