Campus Location
Dallas Campus (Online)
Date of Award
5-2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Department
Organizational Leadership
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Committee Chair or Primary Advisor
Lawrence Santiago
Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor
Cecilia Hegamin-Younger
Third Committee Member or Committee Reader
Andrew Lumpe
Abstract
The national shortage of nurses has worsened in the United States and is a cause for concern for the health care industry and society. The decreased number of nurses graduating and passing the national boards worsens the quality of patient care, contributing to the decline in treating the sick and leading to negative outcomes. Nursing students must demonstrate competency to care for patients before receiving their licensure as registered nurses by passing the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN). A nursing school in East Texas uses preadmissions science grade point average (SGPA) and the Assessment Technologies Institute (ATI) exams as predictor variables to evaluate passing or failing on the NCLEX-RN first attempt. The purpose of this study was to conduct a retrospective archival analysis of nurse students starting in 2018. Archived scores of 527 students were evaluated from five terms/semesters from 2018 through 2020 assessing the SGPA, the standardized ATI Test of Essential Academic Skills admissions/entrance exam scores, ATI RN predictor/exit exam scores, and NCLEX-RN. The researcher compared the same versions of the entrance exams, admission policies, and nursing program exit exams. There were 193 students (36.6%) out of 527 who completed the nursing program with 190 passing and three failing the NCLEX-RN on the first attempt. Spearman’s correlations were used to evaluate the hypotheses between the NCLEX-RN result and selected variables. None of the three research questions or hypotheses were substantiated. A modified t-test table was also included because there was a substantial sample size difference of 190 students who passed and three who did not pass on the first attempt. The three students who did not pass had higher SGPAs. A review of the high attrition rate and assessment of the intervention strategies is recommended to increase the number of graduating nurses to reduce nurse shortages and promote high-quality and safe patient care.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
McGaha, Zelia Souza, "Using Standardized Assessments to Forecast Success or Failure on the NCLEX" (2024). Digital Commons @ ACU, Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 793.
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/etd/793