Performance evaluation is vital in the nursing field due to the large numbers of nursing students, and the necessity of skill training as an internship in the field under the supervision of the nurses. Accordingly, this study is aimed at determining the current situation and clinical performance evaluation of nursing students. This is descriptive-analytical research. The study sample contains all nursing students of 7th and 8th semesters with an internship in the field (n=145), who participated in the study by personal consent. Nursing Clinical Performance Evaluation Checklist made by Esmaeili et al. (2013) was used as a research instrument. The questionnaire contains 28 items in 3 domains of the nursing process (12 items), professionalism (9 items), and ethical principles (7 items). The face and content validity of the instrument was confirmed, and the reliability was measured using internal consistency by Cronbach's Alpha (0.92). For the data analysis, SPSS-20 was used. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the data. The results showed that the mean value and standard deviation of performance evaluation of students of 7th and 8th semesters of nursing are obtained at 5±2.03, which is in average level. The highest mean value of performance evaluation was associated with the ethical principles of students (6±2.3), and the lowest mean value was associated with the range of the nursing process (5±2). The mean value of professionalism was 6±2.1. The results obtained from the study showed that the 7th and 8th-semester nursing students were at an average level in terms of performance evaluation.

Keywords: evaluation, clinical performance evaluation, nursing students, clinical area