The purpose of this study was to examine efficacious instructional strategies that the New England Community College (NECC) nursing program could implement in the curricula to improve National Council Licensure Examination Registered Nurse (NCLEX-RN) first-time pass rates. Effective strategies from students and nursing program faculty had used were investigated. Such strategies support student nurses in their efforts to succeed on the first administration of the exit examination. The rationale for this study and resulting project was that they could improve NCLEX-RN first-time pass rates and positively impact the local hiring of qualified nurses. Guided by Knowles's adult learning theory, key results of the study and resulting project were developed from effective instructional strategies discovered from former NECC students. The central research question focused on identifying which teaching-learning strategies in the NECC nursing curricula improved students' critical thinking skills and problem solving skills. A qualitative case study design was employed with a purposeful sample of 15 former NECC nursing program graduates. Participant focus groups and annual program/accreditation documents were used to collect data to address how student nurses learn best in order to be successful on the exit examination. The project was the creation of a 3-day seminar in the first semester curriculum that focuses on effective licensure preparation instructional strategies to establish and maintain high NCLEX-RN pass rates. Implications for positive social change include, but are not limited to, improving students' problem solving skills and application of critical thinking strategies in order to positively impact the lives of the patients whom they will serve.

Metacognition is one of the aims of the Swedish curricula in language teaching. This pilot study focuses on the implementation of this aim in a Swedish high-school. The teachers’ and the pupils’ attitudes towards the pupils’ metacognitive learning strategies and the reasons underpinning these attitudes are examined. The material finding of nine semi-structured interviews, held in a Swedish high-school in language teaching classes of Spanish, French and German, is analyzed with a qualitative method to get an understanding of the situation.The theoretical framework gives an introduction and overview of the actual research on the two key notions for this study: learning strategy and metacognition and related main concepts like cognitive and socio-affective strategies. The literature review shows that metacognitive learning strategies promote the pupils’ autonomy and responsibility in learning a foreign language in a more effective way.The analysis of the empirical material indicates that metacognition is a marginalized topic, although, after explaining them its meaning, both the teachers and the pupils think that it would be important to promote the pupils’ metacognitive learning strategies. However, the teachers emphasize more indirectly and unconsciously on offering different choices to accomplish an exercise than on consciously promoting metacognitive strategies. The main reasons for this were: the lack of time due to large and heterogeneous classes and doubting that most of the pupils could be responsible for their own learning.In cases where pupils had used learning strategies that worked best for them, they had developed these on their own and rarely reflected on them. The work with self-evaluative material like the European Language Portfolio was thought to be a good idea by both teachers and pupils but was not used at this particular school.