Actionable companion · School leadership and instructional improvement

From leadership research to district action: Clinical education programs for new graduate nurses: a scoping review

AI-assisted editorial implementation guide. Proposed district actions are separate from the original authors’ findings and recommendations. Independent peer review of this guide is not asserted.

Evidence and transfer

Education-related source: verify which participants, institutions and outcomes were actually studied before district adoption. Source publication type: research-article. License and identity checks do not establish study quality or causality.

Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the source license:

Objective To explore the clinical education programs that support new graduate nurses and their impact on confidence, competence, job satisfaction and workforce retention. Background Nursing workforce turnover is a key issue for healthcare organisations, impacting efficiency, cost-effectiveness, quality of care and patient safety. New graduate nurses are an at-risk cohort who face distinct challenges transitioning into practice, requiring structured and supportive clinical education programs. Methods The JBI methodology for scoping review approach was used. The review was registered and made publicly available in Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/ke5hd. Included studies involved clinical education programs that support new graduate nurses within their first 12 months of employment after completing a bachelor-level degree and their impact on confidence, competence, job satisfaction and retention. The literature search was conducted in March 2025 using CINAHL, Medline and Scopus, with no restrictions on geography or language, and included grey literature across the selected databases. Results 31 studies met the inclusion criteria of the review, with the majority (n = 27) conducted in a hospital setting. Various terminologies were adopted for clinical education programs in the included studies, such as transition or residency programs, preceptorship programs and critical reflection programs. The duration of these programs was between six weeks to 18 months, with the majority delivered over 12 months (n = 18). Clinical education modalities included education sessions, support strategies, facility orientation, leadership involvement in structured programs, shift pattern rules, reflection, structured feedback and participation in quality improvement projects. This review highlighted the positive impact of providing clinical and social support to this at-risk cohort, and identified that structured clinical education programs resulted in improved confidence, competence, retention and job satisfaction of new graduate nurses. Additionally, the review of these studies revealed organisational challenges, including staffing issues and competing demands between sustaining clinical services, and releasing new graduate nurses for scheduled educational activities required to meet clinical education objectives. Conclusion The review identified that structured clinical education programs positively impact the transition of new graduate nurses into professional practice. These findings will inform healthcare educators, policymakers and leaders in planning and prioritising responsive strategies to strengthen new graduate clinical education programs and sustain a future-ready nursing workforce. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12912-026-04561-8.

A 90-day district inquiry

1. Days 1–15 · Appraise. Read the source methods, recruitment, comparator, outcomes and limitations. Record how the study setting differs from your district and which claim the design can support.
2. Days 16–30 · Design. Choose one school improvement question with teachers. Protect a short shared planning cycle, agree an instructional change and use a common rubric for examining student work. Agree participation, privacy protections, baseline and stopping rules before starting.
3. Days 31–60 · Observe. Collect the pre-agreed measures, keep a log of implementation changes and invite confidential voluntary feedback. Preserve existing support for staff and learners.
4. Days 61–90 · Decide. Review implementation fidelity, teacher time and independently scored student work against a recorded baseline. Examine access differences and competing explanations before attributing changes to leadership. Make a dated decision to stop, revise or extend the inquiry.

Board decision brief

Present the local problem, source setting, evidence limits, intervention, responsible owner, total cost, measured changes and uncertainty. Separate staff perceptions, implementation measures and student learning outcomes.

Attribution and reuse

Jennifer McClure; Catherine Gonzalez; Hind Elmir; Shanisha Prasad; Nalini Singh; Leanne Senior; Josephine S. F. Chow; Gladis Kabil; Sheeja Perumbil Pathrose. Clinical education programs for new graduate nurses: a scoping review. BMC Nursing (2026-03-24). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-026-04561-8

Prepared 2026-11-07. Source authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract and source passages are attributed extracts; this editorial guide is offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license.