Predictors of sophomore nursing students' grade point average at Mountain View College

Abstract

Schools of nursing in the Philippines have more applicants than can be accepted. Administrators need valid criteria on which to base admission and progression decisions. Failure of a student to progress in nursing is traumatic to self and family. The purpose of this study was to identify the best early predictors for success in the sophomore year, the first year of clinical nursing. A review of prior studies of predictors of academic success in nursing included four best predictive areas: student demographic characteristics, family characteristics, prior academic performance, and level of student motivation. Each of these four areas was selected for testing. Fifteen predictor variables predicting a significant association with the sophomore year GPA. A questionnaire of 39 items was developed. Face validity was established by submitting the tool to 6 college teachers for evaluation. Reliability was tested by a test-retest procedure using 10 freshman students. The tool was piloted to 30 freshman students. The method of tire study was descriptive survey. Data were collected on 80 sophomore nursing students at Mountain View College in Southern Philippines during the school year 1992-1993. Ethical safeguards included obtaining informed consent from each subject and administrators and ensuring confidentiality of the data. The sophomore year GPA was obtained from the college records. Inferential tests used for testing the hypotheses were Pearson's product-moment correlations and stepwise multiple regression. The alpha level was set at .05. Of the 15 variables postulated to be predictive of sophomore year GPA, five could not be tested. There were coding problems for parents, occupation, hiqh school from which graduated, type of high school from which graduated, and reasons for taking nursing. Gender of student and children in the family had insignificant associations with sophomore year GPA. Variables significantly and positively associated with sophomore GPA were parents' educational level, family income, high school cumulative rating, National College Entrance Examination scores, sophomore year academic load, and studentrs evaluation of adequance of high school preparation for college. Age of the student, hours worked per week were significantly and inversely associated with sophomore year GPA. Seven null hypotheses were rejected. A stepwise multiple regression procedure showed four variables accounted for 292 of the variability in sophomore student GPA; NCEE scores, age of student, high school cumulative rating, and family income. Recommendations included reprilation of the study using predictors not used in this study, including intelligence, aptitude for nursing, personality, study skills, and teacher competence. Another recommendation was to retain the present screening criteria.