Date of Graduation

1996

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

The problem investigated was the low pass rate on the licensing exam for graduates of schools of nursing in West Virginia. The population studied was all West Virginia nursing programs that graduated students who were eligible to take the registered nurse licensing examination between the years of 1985 to 1994. The research method was a descriptive correlational design using data collected from the annual reports submitted to the West Virginia Board of Examiners for Registered Nurses by each nursing program. Sixteen hypotheses were tested to determine the relationship between faculty qualifications and program attributes and the student outcomes of NCLEX-RN pass rate and retention to graduation. The independent variables tested included: highest academic degree held by the faculty; years of teaching experience and clinical experience of the faculty; faculty/student ratio in class and the clinical area; percent of faculty in full-time positions; NLN accreditation status of the program; the ratio of qualified applicants to admission slots; and, the number of graduates taking the NCLEX-RN each year of the study. The unit of analysis for the study was the institution per year. Three hypotheses focusing on program attributes were supported at the.05 or less level of significance on the NCLEX-RN pass rate outcome. These included the faculty/student ratio, percent of faculty in full-time positions and ratio of qualified applicants to admission slots. One faculty qualification, percent of faculty with a doctorate, had a strong negative relationship to pass rate at the.001 level of significance. Another faculty qualification, the number of years teaching experience of the faculty, demonstrated a positive correlation to the NCLEX-RN pass rate. There were no statistically significant correlations between any of the variables and the outcome of retention to graduation.

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