Teaching behaviours of clinical instructors: an audit instrument.

This article describes the development and initial psychometric testing of an instrument that permits the observation and recording of teaching behaviours exhibited by clinical instructors while supervising nursing students. Observations of Nursing Teachers in Clinical Settings (ONTICS) consists of 44 items grouped into nine categories of desirable and undesirable teaching behaviours: questioning method; responding style; method of giving feedback; teaching skill; method of demonstration; interaction with patient/family; interactions with health team; undesirable teaching behaviours; undesirable questioning/responding method. The instrument was refined on several occasions based on input from expert judges. Construction validity, internal consistency reliability and test-retest reliability were found to be acceptable. ONTICS appears to capture an aspect of clinical teaching not readily identified by other, more subjective, instruments.