Background and objective: Due to the unpredictability of events in routine clinical psychiatry and replacing experience with assignments including therapeutic relationship with patients, using modern methods of measurement in this environment without students' acceptance and satisfaction is not possible. To determine the effect of portfolio application on satisfaction and educational achievement of nursing students in psychiatry clerkship, we conducted the present study.

Materials and Methods: In this quasi-experimental study, 60 nursing students who were spending psychiatry clerkship in Ebn-Sina psychiatry hospital in Mashhad (Summer of 2015) were studied. They were allocated to two portfolio and educational goals (The usual method of evaluation) group non-randomly. Before the intervention, educational objective was the same for both groups. Data collection tools included a questionnaire of nursing students satisfaction and a written functional (educational achievement) test. Data analysis was performed by SPSS (11.5 version) software and the independent t-test, Fisher's exact test and chi-square tests.

Results: In this research, 51.7% (n = 31) participating nursing students were male and were 48.3% (n = 29) female. The independent t-test results showed a significant difference between the mean of the nursing student satisfaction in the Portfolio (34.3 ± 2.5) and educational goals (30.5 ± 4.2) groups (p<0.001). Also, there was a difference between the mean of educational achievement in the Portfolio (61.8 ± 14/7) and educational goals (53.0 ± 14.2) group (p<0/02).

Conclusion: Using Portfolio in training can increase nursing student satisfaction and educational achievement. Therefore, it is recommended that nursing teachers use it to assess clinical education.