Date of Conferral
2023
Degree
Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)
School
Education
Advisor
Timothy Lafferty
Abstract
Having an adequate supply of nurses is critical to maintaining the health care system. The problem for this study was that undergraduate nursing students were leaving a local Midwest community college’s nursing program before obtaining a degree. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of the program’s recent graduates, regarding nonacademic factors that they believe helped to facilitate their success. Jeffreys’s nursing universal retention and success model served as the conceptual framework. The research question was focused on identifying nurse graduate perceptions of nonacademic factors that contributed to their success. A basic qualitative research design was used to capture the insights of 12 nurse graduates who graduated between January 2019 and December 2020 through semi structured interviews. A purposeful sampling approach was used to select the participants. Emergent themes were identified through open coding, and the findings were developed and checked for trustworthiness through member checking, rich participant descriptions, and researcher reflexivity. The findings revealed that nursing students faced familial, financial, and work-related challenges that often caused them to leave the program without completing or obtaining their degree. Family, peer, financial and faculty support were shown to facilitate student retention and lead to successful student outcomes. A professional development project was created to provide the nursing school’s faculty and administrators with effective strategies to improve student retention and completion rates. This study has implications for positive social change by creating a structure to provide nurse instructors with strategies and approaches for improving student retention and persistence to graduation.
Recommended Citation
GRAY, MARIANNE, "Nurse Perceptions of Nonacademic Factors That Influence Undergraduate Nursing Student Retention and Persistence to Graduation" (2023). Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies. 14152.
https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/14152
