Nursing Student Retention

Part I: Introduction and Issue Analysis

Increasing numbers of college students are declaring nursing majors, yet the nursing shortage is expected to continue well into the next century (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, 1995, p. 21). The decline in the output of schools of nursing is the combined result of reduced numbers of students entering the schools of nursing even though they declare nursing majors, and increasing attrition rates among enrolled students (Saucier, 1995, p. 183). The problem of attrition in nursing programs at the community college level of especially acute (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 1992, p. 9). Student populations at community colleges are becoming increasingly diverse. This diversity creates special problems in the design and implementation of teaching programs in nursing. When nursing programs are not compatible with the needs of an increasingly diverse student population, attrition among students is one of the adverse outcomes. Approximately 50 percent of nursing education programs in the United States are experiencing significant student attrition problems (Saucier, 1995, p. 183).

B: Researcher Philosophy and Relevance

This researcher believes that the nurturing and caring aspects of treatments delivered by professional nurses is vital to patient well being. A continuing and increasing shortage of professional nurs

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significant and such patterns have been remarkably consistent across several institutions. Interestingly, this relationship between learning patterns and scores appears to be consistent on all standardized timed aptitude measures such as the GRE, MAT, MCAT, LSAT," and so forth (p. 24). IN individuals score the highest followed by EN learners, IS learners, and ES learners. Schroeder (1993, p. 24) concluded that these differences do not necessarily indicate different intelligence levels, "because sensing students take longer to read questions, often going over them several times, they seem to be disadvantaged on timed aptitude measures. Furthermore, the argument is often made that sensing intelligence cannot be measured by paper and pencil instruments, and that sensing students (especially extroverted sensors) are at a disadvantage on any timed examination that focuses on the ability to quickly manipulate symbols and see patterns in relationships between words and concepts." As a group, students preferring the abstract reflective (IN) learning pattern make the highest grades while those preferring the concrete active (ES) pattern receive the lowest grades (Schroeder, 1993, p. 24). Schroeder (1993, p. 24) explained this outcom
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Approximate Word count = 5045
Approximate Pages = 20 (250 words per page)

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