The purpose of this study is to clarify nursing students' perceptions of stress in a clinical learning environment and their coping behaviors and then, based on the results, to identify effective clinical teaching methods. A questionnaire consisting of four scales （clinical learning environment inventory, Clinical Learning Environment Scale （Dunn & Burnett, 1995）, stress response scale, descriptive data on stress-coping behaviors, and demographic data） was administered to 171 junior nursing students at three colleges. The results were as follows: 1） Nursing students stated nursing process which they carried out for patients with acute illness were most stressful during their learning experience of surgical nursing. 2） Correlations were identified between students' relationships with clinical instructors and nursing faculty members, and student stress. 3） Strong correlations were observed between student satisfaction and interpersonal relationships with clinical instructors and nursing faculty members. 4） Nurses were found to be too busy to look after nursing students. 5） Some nursing students indicated that they were bewildered by many of the customary practices of wards. 6） Some nursing students tended to take emotional-focused coping behaviors in the attempt to temporarily stabilize their feelings.
These present results suggest that improvement of the current clinical learning-teaching system and clinical learning environment is necessary in order to encourage nursing students to take problem-focused coping behaviors in response to stress encountered during clinical learning experiences.