The effect of a senior preceptorship on the adaptive competencies of community college nursing students.

A pre-post design was used to examine the effect of a senior preceptorship experience on the adaptive competencies, environmental press perceptions and learning styles of 55 third-year community college nursing students. Kolb's experiential learning theory provided the framework for the study. Subjects rated their concrete and abstract competencies and the importance of divergent and convergent competencies significantly higher following the preceptorship. They also felt that the preceptorship experience contributed significantly more to their competency development than their weekly clinical experiences during the year. Contrary to expectations, administration of the Learning Style Inventory LSI-1976 and LSI-1985 produced inconsistent classifications of subjects' learning styles. Implications for nursing are described.