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Purpose: To explore patients' and parents' involvement in the formative assessment of undergraduate nursing students' paediatric clinical practice. Methods: We conducted semi‐structured interviews with paediatric patients between 14 to 18 years old and parents who received care from a nursing student while admitted to a paediatric tertiary care hospital in Canada. We analysed the data using qualitative content analysis as well as Lincoln and Guba's criteria for establishing trustworthiness. The Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative studies (COREQ) checklist was completed for the quality appraisal of this article. Findings: Three categories emerged from the data: 1) how patients and parents are currently involved in the formative assessment of nursing students' paediatric clinical practice; 2) how patients and parents would prefer to be involved in the formative assessment of nursing students' paediatric clinical practice; and 3) the potential benefits and challenges of involving patients and parents in the formative assessment of nursing students' paediatric clinical practice. Conclusion: This study provided an understanding of patients' and parents' past encounters with nursing students and the elements of care that they have assessed as well as those that they would prefer to assess and provide feedback on, while considering the potential benefits and challenges of their involvement. The findings of this study will assist clinical instructors in determining how and when to involve patients and parents in the assessment of nursing students. Academic institutions offering nursing programmes should consider the study findings when improving or changing formative assessment strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clinical instructors are typically the sole assessors of nursing students completing their pediatric clinical placement in Canadian children's hospitals, as per their educational institution's assessment criteria and learning objectives. The purpose of this study was to explore nursing students' and clinical instructors' perceptions of and experiences with involving pediatric patients and parents in assessing nursing students during their pediatric clinical placement. We conducted a qualitative descriptive study. We completed semi-structured interviews with fourth-year nursing students and pediatric clinical instructors from a University located in a city in central-eastern Canada. We used qualitative content analysis to analyze the data. We found that students and instructors perceived patient and parent involvement in the assessment of nursing students' clinical practice as beneficial for patients, parents, students and instructors. Students and instructors believed patients and parents could contribute to assessing students' communication and therapeutic relationship skills. However, we identified potential challenges including patients' and parents' lack of knowledge regarding nursing skills, as well as added stress for students and parents. Future studies should focus on ways of overcoming these challenges before implementing this novel assessment process. • Families are not involved in nursing students' pediatric clinical assessment. • Students and clinical instructors perceive family involvement as beneficial. • Families can assess students' communication and therapeutic relationship building. • Such involvement may benefit student learning and improve family health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]