The study was conducted at the largest public sector nursing college in the Gauteng province. The South African Nursing Council (SANC) regulation, R425 paragraph (f) stipulates that Biological Nursing Science (BNS) shall be included in the curriculum taught in the four-year diploma nursing programme, leading to registration as a professional nurse. BNS is an ancillary subject in the four year diploma programme in nursing. However, SANC does not stipulate that Biology should be a prerequisite for entry into the nursing programme. Biology as a school subject is neither a prerequisite nor a selection criterion for entry into the four year diploma nursing programme. Since the selection criteria have been widened for entry into nursing, the funders of nursing education seem to consider Biology even less important than before. Hence, the entry criteria are based on the matric score that the applicant achieves following the consideration of symbols obtained in different subjects.
Poor performance in Biological Nursing Science (BNS) of students registered for the 4-year Diploma in Nursing is of grave concern to educators, students and funders of nursing education. A preview of nursing students’ summative results in BNS over a two year period showed a drop in the overall pass rate from 89% to 50%. It was hypothesised that prior biology knowledge or lack thereof might be a reason why BNS is difficult for first and second level nursing students; there is, however, no evidence to support this. Hence, it was intended to establish the factors that contribute to or are related to the performance of students in BNS in their first and second years of the four year diploma in nursing. The purpose of the study was to analyse the performance in BNS 1 and BNS 2 of student nurses at a public nursing college.
In this study the sample comprised two groups of third and fourth year nursing students who have studied BNS 1 in their first year and BNS 2 in their second year of the programme (N=424); 312 (73.6%) agreed to participate; 175 were third year students and 137 fourth year students. A quantitative, survey research design was used. A retrospective record review and a questionnaire were used to collect data.. Students’ academic records were used to obtain BNS 1 and BNS 2 tests and summative examination results. Students’ admission records were used to obtain the socio-demographic data. A total of 364 records were reviewed and constituted the records sample (n=364).
Data were entered onto an Excel spread sheet. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data and to present the results. Chi square (X²) was used to test for significant differences between study variables. The p-value was set at 0.05 level of significance.
The study found that age is the only demographic variable that influences BNS performance; with the age range between 17 to 50 years, older students have lower mean scores in BNS than younger students. The results showed that for every 1 year increase in age, a 0.28% mark decrease in the BNS 2 main examination mark could be expected.
The most popular subject choices in high school are Biology and Physics, however, only Physics was shown to have a significant positive influence on the performance of students in BNS examinations. Among the least chosen subjects are Business Studies and Business Economics which were also shown to have a positive effect on BNS performance. It may be concluded that the subjects Physics, Business studies and Business Economics enhance students’ performance in BNS. On the contrary Biology, was shown not to have an effect on the performance of students in BNS (p=0.15). Previous Biology knowledge did not significantly influence lecture attendance and students’ use of prescribed material but those who had studied Biology more than five years ago or not at all, were more inclined to use recommended material.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/15262 |
| Date | 26 August 2014 |
| Creators | Mohudi, Cecilia Magauta |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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