Factors that affect success in nursing education : an exploratory study

An exploratory study was conducted at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro School of Nursing during the fall of 1979 to identify factors that affected success in nursing education. The three criteria of success that were used as dependent variables were total grade point average (GPA) in the major, theory GPA in the major, and clinical GPA. The independent variables were age, marital status, education, grade on a research paper, SAT scores, high school rank, college GPA when entering the major, profiles from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), and answers to local option questions. This was a population study since all of the 112 junior students participated, and 108 of the 114 seniors participated. As all of the students who participated in the study were enrolled in the nursing major, the study discriminated among students who had been preselected twice, once into the university and again into the nursing major. Multiple regression was the statistical procedure used. Three procedures were used to prevent the loss of any variable that might add to the prediction of either of the GPA's in the major. The three procedures were forward selection, backward elimination, and stepwise regression