The purpose of this descriptive, ex post facto study was to examine possible relationships between demographic, pre-programmatic, and programmatic factors with success in a final Advanced Medical-Surgical nursing course and the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses, as well as their predictive abilities. Data were obtained from the academic records of 209 full-time and part-time nursing program graduates who completed an upper-division baccalaureate nursing degree at a mid-Atlantic private urban university. Descriptive and inferential analyses were utilized to discover possible relationships between the two dependent variables and the various independent variables in groupings suggested by Carroll's (1963) model of School Learning. Two models were derived to predict success in the nursing program as evidenced by successful completion of the final Advanced Medical-Surgical nursing course and passing the NCLEX-RN on the first attempt. The first model identified age at entrance to the nursing program and repeating a science course as the two factors that explained approximately 49% of the variance in the Advanced Medical-Surgical course performance. The second model was able to predict 97.2% correctly those graduates who would be successful on the NCLEX-RN, and only identify 43.8% of those candidates likely to fail. The overall classification ability by the model was 89%. Implications for nursing educators are that more attention needs to be given to admission policies/procedures, and that students entering nursing programs require routine standardized evaluation, identification and remediation of nursing content gaps in order to be successful throughout their nursing studies and ultimately on the NCLEX-RN. / Educational Psychology

Despite the implementation of various strategies to improve outcomes, the pass rates for the National Council Licensure Exam for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN) for an associate degree nursing (ADN) program continue to decrease. This study examined the use of a supplemental computer-assisted formative assessment (SCAFA) as a strategy for NCLEX-RN success. A qualitative case study with a theoretical framework based on constructivism was designed to investigate nurse educators' perspectives of this particular strategy for successful outcomes. To explore these perspectives, data were collected from face-to-face interviews with nurse educators and from program documents from 1 ADN program in the southeastern United States. Guiding research questions explored nurse educators' perceptions of SCAFA and determined if and how data from these assessments were utilized. The data were analyzed using lean coding to determine emerging themes. The findings showed that a lack of consistency in the use of this tool diminishes the effectiveness of this supplemental strategy. Additional themes that emerged: educator and student attitudes, orientation and SCAFA process, resource allocation, training and preparation, and data-driven decision making. These findings were used to design a professional development project focused on the effective use of SCAFA throughout the nursing program. The study and project are expected to promote positive social change by contributing to the body of evidence on computer-assisted formative assessment, bolstering student and nurse educator learning, increasing the number of nursing students who are prepared to successfully pass the NCLEX-RN, improving program outcomes, and contributing to the professional nursing workforce.