Date of Conferral

2022

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

School

Education

Advisor

Vicki Undwerwood

Abstract

AbstractLow retention rates in nursing programs extend the nursing shortage, result in lost revenue for institutions, and place financial burdens on students who leave. This research addressed the retention problem in the nursing program of a Southeastern community college. Guided by Jeffreys’s nursing universal retention and success model, the purpose of this basic qualitative study was to understand first- and second-year nursing students’ and faculty academic advisors’ perceptions of the role of academic advising in nursing students’ persistence and the experiences that facilitate program completion. Interviews with participants, eight advisors and eight first- and second-year students, were audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using open and axial coding. Thirteen themes emerged, including that the nursing students viewed academic advising as an important part of their college experiences and believed that their academic advisors’ knowledge, availability, support for students, and mutual trust affected their decision to persist in the nursing program. The academic advisors viewed career advising, personal guidance, and maintaining ethical responsibility as aspects of their role, in addition to academic advising. Advisors believed a comprehensive academic advising professional development program would help them build better relationships with their nursing student advisees and work better as a team to support students and increase retention. Based on these findings, a policy recommendation describing a professional development training program for nursing academic advisors was created. Retaining more nursing students may bring about positive social change by increasing the number of nurses available to meet the continuously growing demand in health care.

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