Introduction: health education becomes a more complex process since it aims to ensure the training of professionals with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary for their performance. Thus, the adoption of strategies that allow the integral evaluation of the competence is required.Objective: to analyze the scientific evidence about the evaluation of learning and competence in undergraduate nursing education.Method: An integrative literature review with online search in LI-LACS, MEDLINE, Web of Science, SCOPUS and CINAHL databases, through the following descriptors: Competence-Based Education, Nursing Education, Learning, and Assessment.
Results:The 18 articles selected and careful read had a synthesis and critical analysis, identifying the following thematic categories: the concept of competence; essential competence to the training of nurses; learning strategies; and evaluation. It was evidenced that, despite some polysemy around the term competence, the concept presented more similarities than differences and the nursing competence identified are similar to those recommended by the National Curricular Guidelines. It was also observed the emphasis in the learning strategies in simulated settings, and there are doubts about methods and the construction of evaluation tools.
Conclusions:The evaluation of learning and competence continues to be a challenge for nursing educators, and it is recognized that there are difficulties in this process. Therefore, the development of reliable evaluation tools based on criteria and indicators that can verify the performance of the student in action and their earliest possible approximation to real learning scenarios are necessary.