34 senior nursing students from four nursing programs participated in two separate ACLS classes, completing both the written and practical evaluations. Immediately following the courses, all participants served as team leader for a video recorded simulated cardiac arrest event. A panel of expert ACLS instructors who did not participate as instructors in the courses reviewed each video and independently scored team leaders’ performances.
Spearman's rho correlation coefficient between the written test scores and practical skills performance was 0.194 (2-tailed significance = 0.272).
The ACLS written evaluation was not a predictor of participant skills in managing a simulated cardiac arrest event immediately following an ACLS course. The single case simulations used in ACLS skills evaluation test a narrow portion of ACLS content while written evaluation tests can more practically test a broader spectrum of content. Both work in concert to define participant knowledge and neither should be used exclusively to determine participant competence.