Models For Applying Evidence To Clinical Practice.

Nurse Education Today 34 (2014) 918–923 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Nurse Education Today journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/nedt Factors related to academic success among nursing students: A descriptive correlational research study Audrey M. Beauvais a,⁎, Julie G. Stewart a,1, Susan DeNisco a,2, John E. Beauvais b,3 a b Sacred Heart University, 5151 Park Avenue, Fairﬁeld, CT 06825-1000, United States Yale University School of Medicine and Psychology Service VA Connecticut Healthcare System, 950 Campbell Avenue, West Haven, CT 06516, United States a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Accepted 7 December 2013 Keywords: Academic success Emotional intelligence Resilience Psychological empowerment Attrition Retention Nursing students Nursing education s u m m a r y Background: The current rise in employment is improving forecasts for the future supply of registered nurses; however sizeable shortages are still projected. With the intention of improving academic success in nursing students, related factors need to be better understood. Objectives: The purpose of the correlational study was to describe the relationship between emotional intelligence, psychological empowerment, resilience, spiritual well-being, and academic success in undergraduate and graduate nursing students. Design/setting: A descriptive correlational design was utilized. The study was set in a private Catholic university. Participants: There were 124 participants. There were 59% undergraduate and 41% graduate students. Methods: Background data, in addition to the Spreitzer Psychological Empowerment Scale, the Wagnild and Young Resilience Scale, and the Spiritual Well-Being Scale and the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, was collected from students who met study criteria. Results: In a combined sample, academic success was correlated with overall spiritual well-being, empowerment and resilience. Although academic success was not correlated with overall emotional intelligence, it was correlated with the emotional intelligence branch four (managing emotions) score. When undergraduate and graduate students were considered separately, only one correlation was found to be signiﬁcantly related to academic success in the undergraduate sample, namely, emotional intelligence branch one (perceiving emotions). When examining the data from just graduate level nurses, signiﬁcant relationships were found between total emotional intelligence with academic success, resilience with academic success, and psychological empowerment with academic success. Conclusion: The signiﬁcant relationship between psychological empowerment, resilience, spiritual well-being and academic success in this study supports the statements in the literature that these concepts may play an important role in persistence through the challenges of nursing education. Research is needed to examine if strategies to enhance empowerment, resilience, and spiritual well-being can increase academic success in a test–retest design. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction The current rise in employment is improving forecasts for the future supply of registered nurses; however sizeable shortages are still projected for the following decade in the United States as well as in other countries such as China (Buerhaus et al., 2009; Leong, 2012). A recent study by Buerhaus et al. (2009) predicts that by 2025 the United States will have ⁎ Corresponding author: 5151 Park Avenue, Fairﬁeld, CT 06825-1000, United States. Tel.: +1 203 371 7718; fax: +1 203 365 7662. E-mail addresses: beauvaisa@sacredheart.edu (A.M. Beauvais), StewartJ1270@sacredheart.edu (J.G. Stewart), deniscos@sacredheart.edu (S. DeNisco), john.beauvais@va.gov (J.E. Beauvais). 1 Tel.: +1 203 365 7750; fax: +1 203 365 7662. 2 Tel.: +1 203 365 7661; fax: +1 203 365 7662. 3 Tel.: +1 203 932 5711; fax: +1 203 937 4951. 0260-6917/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2013.12.005 a nursing shortage twice as large as the shortfall in the middle 1960s. In order to alleviate the shortage, nursing programs will need to increase the supply of qualiﬁed nurses. Although college enrollments continue to grow, the attrition rate from nursing programs nationwide hovers around 50% (Newton and Moore, 2009). Both nationally and internationally (Gillen, 2012; O’Donnell, 2012), attrition rates in nursing programs are of concern as they reduce the supply of nurses. Additionally, the nursing profession should be concerned about attrition rates for masters and doctoral nursing students as well. Attrition rates for master’s programs range from 10 to 75% (Croxton, 2013) and rates for doctoral programs range from 40 to 70% (Berman and Radda, 2012). Given the growing shortage of nursing faculty and family physicians, the above statistics are of concern. Graduate prepared nurses will be needed to replace the large number of retiring faculty in Canada and the United States (Cathro, 2011). In additions, nurse A.M. Beauvais et al. / Nurse Education Today 34 (2014) 918–923 practitioners are needed to help alleviate the family physician shortage. By 2020, the United States is projected to confront a shortage of 91,500 doctors (Arvantes, 2012). In an effort to address the shortages of nurses with undergraduate and graduate nursing degrees, nursing programs have been measuring student retention, attrition, and graduation rates. Nursing programs are not the only ones taking note of such measures. External credentialing organizations such as the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education mandates the calculation of graduation rates for all nursing programs (Robertson et al., 2010). The presumption is that measures such as graduation rates will help to guide nursing programs in monitoring how successful their curriculums are and to provide feedback on improving or maintaining strategies that facilitate student success (Robertson et al., 2010). Nurse educators need to examine ways to promote student success by improving our current methodologies and practices. In order to do so, the factors that inﬂuence nursing academic success need to be better understood. Background/Literature Many university’s admission departments dedicate substantial time and money for the recruitment and admission of nursing students (Shelton, 2012). Furthermore, admission staff are tasked with the ever more difﬁcult charge of distinguishing applicants who can be successful (Bauchmoyer et al., 2004; Hopkins, 2008). Traditionally, a student’s high school grade point average (GPA) and standardized test scores such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the American College Test® (ACT) have been identiﬁed as predictors of academic success (Noble and Sawyer, 2004; Sparkman et al., 2012; Timer and Clauson, 2011). In addition, the literature review indicates that science knowledge is a predictor of nursing program success (Byrd et al., 1999; Lewis and Lewis, 2000; Phillips et al., 2002; Potolsky et al., 2003; Wong and Wong, 1999; Wolkowitz and Kelley, 2010). Hence, the above data are frequently utilized to help recruit qualiﬁed applicants. Recruiting qualiﬁed applicants is just the beginning step in fostering program completion (Shelton, 2012). After students are admitted, they ought to be afforded resources that will foster their persistence in the nursing program as well as promote their academic success (Shelton, 2012). Retention as well as attrition of nursing students has been associated with demographic, academic, ﬁnancial, cognitive, and personality/behavioral factors (Cameron et al., 2011; Jeffreys, 2012; Pitt et al., 2012; Williams, 2010). Historically, many researchers have focused on intelligence quotient (IQ) when examining what promotes academic success (Ahammed et al., 2011). However, more recently scholars have begun to contemplate non-cognitive or psychosocial factors such as emotional intelligence, psychological empowerment, resilience, and spiritual well-being as a way to further academic success (Ahammed et al., 2011; Barchard, 2003; Bemak, 2005; Cleary et al., 2008; Deb, 2012; Kneipp et al., 2009; Sparkman et al., 2012; Suliman, 2010; Young, 2009). More speciﬁcally, researchers found that managing emotions was positively correlated with academic success (Ahammed et al., 2011; Mayer et al., 2004). Other scholars have focused on how classroom techniques can promote psychological empowerment thus promoting academic success. Although, to date no research studies were found that examined the relationship between empowerment and academic success. Still other researchers have examined the relationship between academic success and resilience has been which demonstrated a positive correlation between the variables (Deb, 2012). Finally, scholars have linked spiritual well-being to many areas of functioning (Dunn et al., 2007; Kneipp et al., 2009; Paloutzian and Ellison, 1982; Taliaferro et al., 2009; VonDras and Schmitt, 2007) and support the relationship between spiritual well-being and academic success. Despite these studies and opinions, there is a paucity of research regarding the relationship of emotional intelligence, psychological 919 empowerment, resilience, spiritual well-being and academic success in the context of nursing students. Given the potential value of such factors in advancing academic success and therefore inﬂuencing outcomes such as retention, attrition, and graduation rates, research is warranted as it may provide insight into non-cognitive strategies that could be of potential beneﬁt to this population. Methods Design and Sample A descriptive correlational design was utilized. A convenience sample of 244 undergraduate and 272 graduate nursing students in a medium-sized, private, Catholic university in New England were recruited to participate in the study. The undergraduate group consisted of 169 students in a traditional ﬁrst professional degree program (60 sophomores, 51 juniors, and 58 seniors) and 75 students in a RN to BSN program. The graduate group consisted of 229 students in Master’s programs (96 in the Family Nurse Practitioner Program, 60 in the Clinical Nurse Leader Program, 37 in the Patient Care Service Administration Program, and 36 in the Nursing Education Program) and 43 in the Doctor of Nursing Practice Program. All undergraduate and graduate nursing students were included in the study with the following exceptions. Freshman nursing students were excluded as they have not begun their nursing courses. Students less than 18 years of age were excluded as they are unable to provide informed consent given that they are considered minors. A power computation (Cohen, 1992) was completed via gPower 3.0.5 (Faul et al., 2009) and revealed that 109 participants were required established on an alpha equal to 0.05, effect size moderate (0.3), and power equal to 0.09. Instruments The instruments utilized were the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), Spreitzer Psychological Empowerment Scale, Wagnild and Young Resilience Scale, the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS), as well as a background data sheet. The MSCEIT is an abilitybased appraisal of emotional intelligence that is comprised of 141 items designed to assess total emotional intelligence along with the four branches of emotional intelligence: perceiving emotions, using emotions to assist thought, understanding emotions, and managing emotions (Mayer et al., 2002, 2003). Face validity is evident in the tasks used by the MSCEIT to evaluate emotional intelligence (Mayer et al., 2000). Content validity is exhibited by the MSCEIT’s thoughtful depiction of the Four Branch Model (Mayer et al., 2000). Discriminant, incremental, and convergent validity of the MSCEIT have been veriﬁed (Brackett and Mayer, 2003). The split-half reliability coefﬁcients for the entire test is r = .91 and for the four branches range from r = .80 to .91 (Mayer et al., 2000). The Sprietzer’s Psychological Empowerment Scale was used to measure psychological empowerment. The scale contains 12 seven-point rating scale items (3 items per dimension) ranging from 1 (very strongly disagree) to 7 (very strongly agree) (Spreitzer and Quinn, 2001; Spreitzer, 2007). The instrument contains the following four subscales: meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact. The overall score for each subscale is divided by 3 to obtain an average score for that subscale. The total score represents the psychological empowerment at that moment in time which will not necessarily be the same at a different point in time (Spreitzer and Quinn, 2001). A second order conﬁrmatory factor analysis revealed that the four subscales are distinct and add to a general sense of empowerment (Spreitzer, 2007). The Cronbach alpha reliability for the overall psychological empowerment ranged from 0.85 to 0.91 (Laschinger et al., 2004).

The Wagnild and Young Resilience Scale was used to measure resilience. The scale contains 14 seven-point rating scale items ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The instrument consists of 920 A.M. Beauvais et al. / Nurse Education Today 34 (2014) 918–923 the following ﬁve themes of resilience: self-reliance, meaning, equanimity, perseverance, and existential aloneness (Wagnild and Young, 1993). Content and construct validity have been veriﬁed (Black and Ford-Gilboe, 2004; Humphreys, 2003; Monteith and Ford-Gilboe, 2002). The reliability yielded alpha coefﬁcients ranging from 0.85 to 0.94 (Wagnild and Young, 1993). The Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS) was used to measure spiritual well-being. The scale contains 20 six-point rating scale items that assess overall perceived spiritual well-being as well as two subscales of spirituality speciﬁcally religious well-being and existential well-being (Ellison, 1983; Paloutzian and Ellison, 1982). The religious well-being subscale offers a self-appraisal of the individual’s relationship with God. The existential well-being subscale offers a self-appraisal of the individual’s feeling of life-purpose, life-satisfaction, and relationship to others. The SWBS items are non-denominational and can be used with individuals from a variety of backgrounds and faiths (Ellison, 1983). Face validity is apparent in the item content (Ellison, 1983; Paloutzian and Ellison, 1982). The reliability yielded alpha coefﬁcients ranging from a high of 0.99 for the religious well-being subscale and total spiritual well-being to a low of 0.73 for the existential well-being subscale (Ellison, 1983; Paloutzian and Ellison, 1982). Background data gathered were gender, age, ethnicity, marital status, type of nursing program, and self-reported grade point average. Procedure Once Institutional Review Board (IRB) authorization was acquired, an IRB approved script inviting students to participate in the study was sent electronically to those students who met the criteria for the study. Nursing professors not connected to the research were asked to tell the students about the study during their nursing classes. The students were informed that the researchers were nursing professors and notiﬁed that no distinguishing information would be gathered that would enable the researchers to associate them with their responses. Once the email invitation was received and read, interested students accessed the attached web link that lead them to the study website where a consent letter was presented. The students were informed that they were required to be 18 years of age or older to partake and to carefully review the information. Only those students that provided consent were allowed to proceed forward to complete the background data, Spreitzer Psychological Empowerment Scale, Wagnild and Young Resilience Scale, and Spiritual Well-Being (SWB) Scale. The above background data and scales were provided on SurveyMonkey™. The SSL encryption feature was turned on and IP addresses were not gathered in order to ensure a secure transmission. SurveyMonkey™ has established environmental and physical safety measures in an effort to protect data. After completing the above, participants were given a web link to the MSCEIT as the publisher of that instrument mandates that it be given as a separate test on the publisher’s server. The ﬁnal four digits of the participants’ social security number were used to connect the databases. Statistical Analysis The SurveyMonkey™ responses were transferred in raw and summary format into an Excel spreadsheet that was then downloaded into PASW Statistics 18. The MSCEIT was tabulated by Multi-Health Systems Inc. (MHS). MHS supplied a report with raw data and standard scores in an Excel document that was then transferred into PASW Statistics 18. The MSCEIT raw data resides at MHS with the exception of the Excel document that was provided to the researcher. MHS was not able to access any data other than the MSCEIT. Descriptive statistics and Pearson’s correlations were calculated utilizing PASW Statistics 18. Data/Results Response Rate Thirty six percent of the students (n = 186) answered the initial website survey. Nevertheless, the ultimate response rate reduced to 24% (n = 124) as 44 participants did not go on to take the MSCEIT which was housed on the second website and 18 participants either did not follow the coding instructions or had the same last four digit of their social security number which resulted in information that could not be positively paired. The ﬁnal data set contained 124 nursing students (response rate of 24%) which was greater than the 109 participants needed on power computation. Characteristics of the Sample The sample mean age was 30 years old with a range from 18 to 59 years old and a standard deviation of 12.50. Sixty ﬁve percent (80 of the 124 participants) were 18 to 30 years of age. Ninety seven percent (n = 120) of the participants were women and 3% (n = 4) of the participants were men. Sixty ﬁve percent (n = 80) were single, 29% (n = 36) were married, 5% (n = 6) were divorced, 1% (n = 1) was widowed, and 1% (n = 1) did not specify. Eighty eight percent (n = 109) were Caucasian. Additionally, 1% (n = 1) was classiﬁed as an Asian, 7% (n = 8) as African American/Black, 4% (n = 5) as Hispanic or Latino, and 1% (n = 1) as Paciﬁc Islander/Hawaiian. These results are presented in Table 1. Fifty nine percent (n = 73) of the participants in the study were from the undergraduate nursing program. Of this, 4% (n = 5) were sophomores, 32% (n = 39) were juniors, 21% (n = 26) were seniors, and 2% (n = 3) were undergraduate RN to BSN students. Forty percent (n = 50) of the participants in the study were from the graduate programs. Of this, 11% (n = 13) were from the family nurse practitioner program, 8% (n = 10) were from the patient care services program, 6% (n = 7) were from the clinical nurse leader program, 5% (n = 6) were from the education program, and 11% (n = 14) were from the doctor of nursing practice program. One percent (n = 1) did not specify the nursing program. These results are presented in Table 1. Table 1 Characteristics of the participants (N = 124). Characteristic Gender Female Male Marital status Single Married Divorced Widowed Not identiﬁed Race Caucasian Asian Hispanic/Latino Black Paciﬁc Islander/Hawaiian Nursing program Undergraduate sophomores Undergraduate juniors Undergraduate seniors Undergraduate RN to BSN Graduate: FNP Graduate: PCS Graduate: CNL Graduate: Education Graduate: DNP Not identiﬁed Frequency Percent 120 4 97.0 3.0 80 36 6 1 1 65.0 29.0 5.0 1.0 1.0 109 1 5 8 1 88.0 1.0 4.0 7.0 1.0 5 39 26 3 13 10 7 6 14 1 4.0 32.0 21.0 2.0 11.0 8.0 6.0 5.0 11.0 1.0 A.M. Beauvais et al. / Nurse Education Today 34 (2014) 918–923 Academic success was measured by the student’s GPA. Higher scores indicate greater academic success.

720 × 540
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Models For Applying Evidence To Clinical Practice.

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