Recent research shows that nursing students are increasingly engaging with generative AI tools in their education, and that both trust and competence with AI influence performance and perceived usefulness of these technologies in learning contexts.
A 2025 study published in BMC Medical Education by Khlaif et al. surveyed over 500 undergraduate nursing students about their experiences with generative AI in their programs. The results revealed critical insights about how AI competency affects student performance and readiness for practice.
Key Research Findings
The Khlaif et al. study found that:
Trust in AI positively influenced how useful students perceived it to be, and this, in turn, was associated with enhanced student performance in nursing education settings.
Students' AI competencies were linked to actual educational outcomes, revealing that students who were less competent with AI might not benefit fully from AI tools.
Students' beliefs, skills, and confidence with AI interact to shape learning outcomes, highlighting the importance of building AI literacy as part of clinical training.
The Transition-to-Practice Gap
These findings have major implications for the transition-to-practice gap — the documented disconnect between what students learn in school and what they need to perform confidently and competently in real clinical settings.
Nursing employers consistently cite gaps in:
- Documentation accuracy
- Clinical reasoning
- Workflow efficiency
AI literacy and familiarity with AI-augmented clinical workflows are quickly becoming part of essential readiness skills for modern practice. The research shows that students who trust and understand AI tools perform better in their studies, making AI competency a critical component of practice readiness.
How HealthTasks Helps Students Build Practical AI Skills
Rather than presenting AI as an abstract technology, HealthTasks offers hands-on, clinical-integrated AI tools that help students practice the types of tasks they will be doing on the job — with AI as an augmentation, not a replacement.
AI Scribe — From Learning to Doing
The AI scribe in HealthTasks simulates a real-world clinical documentation assistant. By helping students transcribe and structure clinical interactions as they would in practice, it accelerates students' ability to produce accurate clinical notes, reduces cognitive load early in training, and encourages repeated practice with real-like clinical data, improving confidence and skill transfer into clinical environments.
AI SOAP Note Helper — Bridging Theory & Practice
HealthTasks' AI-powered SOAP note helper guides students through structured clinical reasoning, models professional documentation standards, and teaches students how to critically evaluate and refine AI suggestions, fostering deeper clinical thinking.
Building AI Literacy Into Clinical Training
HealthTasks doesn't just use AI — it helps students learn how to use AI well. Contextual prompts show them how to word clinical questions for better output, inline explanations of AI suggestions help students reflect critically, and frequent, job-related practice builds the kind of AI literacy that employers increasingly expect.
This mirrors the research insight that practice with AI tools enhances perceived usefulness and performance, particularly when students build competence rather than just exposure. The study highlighted that students who were less competent with AI might not benefit fully from AI tools, making structured, contextual AI training essential.
A Practice-Ready Workforce Through AI Fluency
Integrating AI into clinical education isn't just trendy — it's a response to how healthcare is changing. The Khlaif et al. study shows that students who trust and understand AI tools perform better in their studies. HealthTasks takes the next step: it builds those competencies within the very workflows that students will encounter in practice.
By doing so, HealthTasks enables:
Students internalize AI support skills before they encounter them in clinical settings
Faculty can monitor and guide AI use, ensuring it supports learning rather than masking gaps
Programs produce graduates ready for a workforce where AI-augmented care is standard
This integration of AI into both skill development and clinical thinking helps educators and students alike close the transition-to-practice gap — producing nurses who are not just technically prepared, but AI-capable, confident, and ready to deliver high-value care.