A comparison of persisting and nonpersisting nursing students at a junior college /

Abstract

Frequency counts, percentages, Chi-squares, and t-tests were used in data analysis which resulted in the rejection of twenty-seven (27) of the 113 null hypotheses factors.

Strategies directed toward the reduction of attrition in the Nursing Program at Seminole Junior College were recommended.

The population for the study was eighty-five (85) graduates of the Nursing Program at Seminole Junior College between 1980 and 1983, and fifty-five (55) students who had dropped out of the Nursing Program between the Fall Semester of 1979 and the Spring Semester of 1983.

The study was designed to identify factors associated with nonpersisting students in the Nursing Program at Seminole Junior College. Accordingly, the following research hypotheses were tested for significance at (p < .05): No statistically significant differences exist between persisters and nonpersisters with regard to (1) demographically related characteristics; (2) student perceptions of employment, financial, personal circumstance, program-related, family-related, or commuter problems; (3) student perceptions of peer-group interactions, student interactions with faculty, faculty concern for student development and teaching, academic and intellectual development, or institutional and goal commitments; and (4) ACT scores, Nelson-Denny Reading levels, grades received in required science classes, or overall grade point averages (GPA).