The mediating role of professional commitment between the clinical learning environment and learning engagement of nursing students in clinical practice: A cross-sectional study

Background: Previous studies have shown that learning engagement can significantly predict nursing students' academic achievement. Nursing educators put considerable effort into assessing and promoting students' engagement in school. However, nursing students' learning engagement in clinical practice has seldom been explored.

Objectives: To investigate nursing students' learning engagement and influencing factors in clinical practice and examine the effects of the clinical learning environment and professional commitment on learning engagement, specifically to verify the mediation effect of professional commitment.

Design: A cross-sectional study.

Settings: The participants were from five hospitals in Jining, Shandong, China.

Participants: A total of 318 nursing students who were at the end of clinical practice training (>8 months) were included in this study.

Methods: The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale for Students, the Clinical Learning Environment for Nursing Scale, and the Professional Commitment Scale were used for data collection. Regression and mediating analyses were used to explore the influencing factors of clinical learning engagement and the potential mediating role of professional commitment.

Results: The participants experienced moderate levels of engagement in clinical learning. The clinical learning environment indirectly affected nursing students' learning engagement in clinical practice through professional commitment. Night shifts and educational background also contributed to learning engagement.

Conclusions: The findings provide new perspectives on promoting nursing students' clinical learning engagement. Professional commitment might be an important mediating variable in nursing education. There is a need to take steps to improve professional commitment of nursing students.