Degree Name
Nursing Practice, DNP
Publication Date
4-20-2026
First Advisor
Lisa Drake
Second Advisor
Randi McCoy
Abstract
Clinical adjunct nursing faculty often transition into academic roles without formal preparation, leading to role insecurity and high turnover rates that negatively impact student clinical experiences. The purpose of this quality improvement (QI) project was to implement a structured orientation checklist to improve perceived clinical teaching competency among novice clinical adjunct faculty. The project aimed to standardize onboarding and support the transition from clinical practice to academia. A quantitative pre-post intervention design was used with a convenience sample of clinical adjunct faculty employed for less than one year at a rural university nursing program. The project was guided by Kotter’s 8-step change model and grounded in Benner’s Novice to Expert theory. The evidence-based intervention consisted of a structured orientation checklist aligned with National League for Nursing competencies. Data were collected using the Academic Clinical Nurse Educator Skill Acquisition Tool (ACNESAT©), administered via Qualtrics, before and after the intervention over a four-week period. Data analysis using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test revealed a positive directional increase in perceived competency scores, although results were not statistically significant. Despite this, findings suggest that structured onboarding may enhance adjunct faculty confidence and role readiness. This project advanced knowledge at the project site by establishing an evidence-based procedure for providing orientation to novice clinical adjunct faculty, and advances could be made in the discipline by following similar steps across nursing education.
Rights Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Saunders, Elissa, "Quality Improvement Project: Improving the Clinical Teaching Experience through Clinical Adjunct Orientation" (2026). Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects. 323.
https://arch.astate.edu/dnp-projects/323
