Nursing students' competence and perceived mentor assessment literacy: the mediating role of self-efficacy and gender bias.

backgroundMentors play a crucial role in clinical nursing education, particularly in assessing student nurses. However, if students cannot perceive their mentors' assessment-literate practices (referred to as mentors' assessment-literate practices hereafter), students may not effectively utilize assessment information for learning. Despite its significance, mentors' assessment-literate practices and the antecedent factors are not well studied. This study aims to explore the mediating role of nursing students' self-efficacy in the relationship between their competence and their perception of mentors' assessment-literate practices, while also examining potential gender bias in mentors' assessment-literate practices.

methodsThe study employed a cross-sectional quantitative design. Participants included 854 final-year nursing students (61 males, 793 females) from 10 colleges/universities in southern China. After eight months of clinical training, students reported on mentors' assessment-literate practices, self-efficacy, internship grades, and gender. Path analysis was conducted using Mplus 8.10 to test the mediating model, and gender bias was assessed through differential item functioning analysis with Winsteps

resultsThe study found a full mediation effect of self-efficacy between competence and students' perception of their mentors' assessment-literate practices, with a statistically significant indirect association of 0.10. The path coefficient between competence and self-efficacy is 0.12, and between self-efficacy and perceived mentors' assessment-literate practices is 0.86. Gender bias and gender difference were statistically not supported; however, three items showed large effect size regarding gender bias.

conclusionsThis study introduces assessment-literate practices as a key concept in nursing education, highlighting its antecedent factors and potential gender biases for better assessment practices. The findings suggest that self-efficacy plays a full mediating role; hence, stakeholders should prioritize developing students' self-efficacy while improving their competence. Also, mentorship practices should be adjusted to ensure equal opportunities for both male and female students; specifically, they may need to be aware of potential gender bias, offering male students more practice opportunities and female students more chances to explain.