Abstract

Nursing programs must be able to recruit and successfully train future nurses in a timely manner. However, some students, appearing adequately prepared in application materials, do not move successfully through baccalaureate nursing education, pass the licensing exam, and enter the nursing profession. Nursing students enter into a strictly prescribed curriculum leaving little time for traditional college environment socialization. Unveiling factors leading to greater persistence to degree attainment will ultimately lead to more nursing graduates needed to counter the current nursing shortage. One Midwestern program recently (2003-2004) lost 28% of incoming junior-level nursing students in the first two semesters (C. Horton, personal communication, September 15, 2004). As accrediting agencies base certification on many measures, including attrition rates, this is a disturbing trend. This study examined a subset of data representing nursing students from a nationally recognized longitudinal data set for indicators of social factors with potential impact on student persistence in the nursing field of study. Results demonstrate that several social factors, when coupled with student input characteristics such as need for math remediation and feelings of being overwhelmed, share in the variance among groups of nursing students who persist in the field of study and those who leave nursing as a field of study. The most highly correlated variable related to persistence in the nursing field of study was student's perceptions of faculty respect. This is a variable that is able to be manipulated in an effort to limit attrition of upper division nursing students.

Description

This dissertation has also been disseminated through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. Dissertation/thesis number: 3258690; ProQuest document ID: 304847181. The author still retains copyright.

Author Details

Jeana R. Wilcox, PhD, APMHCNS-BC, Psychiatric APRN

Sigma Membership

Delta

Type

Dissertation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Other

Research Approach

Quantitative Research

Keywords:

Nursing Education, Attrition, Peer Support, Academic Performance

Advisor

Marc Mahlios

Second Advisor

Dongbin Kim

Third Advisor

Phillip McKnight

Fourth Advisor

Anita Wingate

Degree

PhD

Degree Grantor

University of Kansas

Degree Year

2007

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

None: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Date of Issue

2024-05-09

Full Text of Presentation

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