The professional teaching competence of a nurse preceptor should be progressive at all times in order to comply with the trend of medical circumstance and be helpful for the new nurse. For the purpose to inspect the ability of a nurse preceptor, an evaluation tool with sufficient reliability is important. Two copies of related evaluation scale were collected and inspected in this article. It indicates that the scale items in the above mentioned scales s did not introduce some important contents including the Inter-professional Practice (IPP) and Evidence-Based in nursing practice.

This study aims to understand the contents of the nurse preceptor’s professional teaching competence and developed the nurse preceptor’s professional teaching competence scale (NPPTCS).

The NPPTCS were constructed in four stages. The first stage, based on a literature review, integration at home and abroad related to professional teaching competence connotation. In the second stage, focus group interviews, in southern regional teaching hospital, we invited ten nurse preceptors and four new nurses to participate in focus group interviews. Data were analyzed by content analysis and constructed a preliminary framework of scale items. In the third stage, using the Delphi Method, we invited 15 experts and scholars to detect scale items of content validity and use two rounds of structured questionnaires to view the appropriateness of the scale items, representativeness, clarity, and completed of construction the professional teaching competence scale for nurse preceptors. In the end of this stage, data from the questionnaire were analyzed using internal consistency. Analysis results were to determine the reliability and validity of the developed scale.

According to the research result, the NPPTCS are composed of the five dimensions as following: enthusiastic teaching commitment, harmonious learning atmosphere, guided teaching skills, objective feedback and evaluation, and interprofessional practice, combining with 36 items. The final version of the NPPTCS showed good reliability and validity, Cronbach’s alph were 0.96 and content validity index were 0.99, respectively.

Based on the research result, the researcher proposes the NPPTCS can enhance their ability. Meanwhile, the NPPTCS not only can be considered as a reference in a nurse preceptors training but also evaluation the nurse preceptors for clinical teaching performance.