Predicting Students’ Performance on the Nursing Board Exam

• In Event: Predicting Performance for Learner Success in the Professions

Abstract

Due to the current U.S. nursing shortage, nursing education programs are under enormous pressure to produce qualified bachelor’s-prepared nurses as quickly as possible. Nursing students must be fully prepared to pass the licensing exam (NCLEX-RN) immediately after graduation to enter the workforce. Using binary logistic regression, this analysis identifies which factors in a student’s bachelor's degree trajectory tend to be most indicative of the student’s NCLEX-RN result. Five predictors were identified as significant contributors to the NCLEX-RN result: score on a standardized entrance exam, score on a sophomore-level nursing fundamentals exam, score a junior-level pharmacology exam, grade in a junior-level nursing course on managing adult care, and having completed the majority of coursework before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Author

• Susannah W Townsend, The Ohio State University