The problem with which this study is concerned is the attrition of freshman and sophomore students who enroll in a baccalaureate nursing program. The purpose of this study is to identify and describe factors that may contribute to the nursing student attrition problem at a state-supported university.

The purposes of this study are to identify student retention strategies in generic baccalaureate schools of nursing and their supporting institutions to determine if these strategies vary according to identified characteristics of the school of nursing and its supporting institution and to determine the perceived effectiveness of the strategies. Data were collected from 313 administrative heads of schools of nursing that offer generic baccalaureate programs accredited by the National League for Nursing; 217 returned usable questionnaires constituted a national response rate of 69.3 per cent. Frequency distribution and the chi-square test of independence, significant at the .05 level, were used for statistical treatment of the data.

The problem with which this study is concerned is the inclusion of actual critical care experience in generic nursing curricula in the United States. A survey instrument was sent to faculty representatives selected by the dean of each of 312 generic baccalaureate nursing programs.