Award Date

8-1-2021

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Nursing

First Committee Member

Jennifer Kawi

Second Committee Member

Nirmala Lekhak

Third Committee Member

Andrew Reyes

Fourth Committee Member

Noelle Lefforge

Number of Pages

151

Abstract

Successful test performance is essential to nursing students. Poor performance comes with consequences such as inability to progress or removal from the program, leading to attrition. The influence of academic factors on test performance have been widely researched and stress is known to hinder it, yet other factors may also impact test performance.

Dispositional mindfulness has the potential to support test performance, but no known studies have focused on these two variables among undergraduate nursing students. A gap also exists in relation to the influence of nonacademic factors on undergraduate nursing students’ test performance. Due to the ongoing nursing shortage, understanding these relationships may be impactful to support undergraduate nursing students in their program completion.

Using the Yerkes-Dodson Law, this study served to fill the gap in existing literature using a descriptive, correlational, cross-sectional design. Five research questions were identified. After Institutional Review Board approval, this study was conducted with a convenience sample from five Midwestern schools with a sample size of 99 participants. Recruitment criteria included senior nursing students taking the Assessment Technologies Institutes (ATI) Comprehensive Predictor examination as a measure of test performance. Pearson’s correlation and multiple regression were used to test the research questions and analyze findings while controlling for relevant variables.

Analyses of the research questions revealed no significant correlations between dispositional mindfulness and test performance as well as nonacademic factors and test performance. Neither mindfulness nor nonacademic factors moderated the relationships between stress and test performance or between nonacademic factors and test performance. However, it was found in the regression models that the severity of nonacademic factors was a negative predictor for test performance after controlling for relevant variables. Findings also showed that there was significant moderate to strong correlations between mindfulness and stress, nonacademic factors and stress, and mindfulness and nonacademic factors. These findings add to the literature due to the current gap in evaluating these factors among undergraduate nursing students.

The results of this study provide new information that can be used to inform future research and can be utilized by nurse educators and nursing schools to enhance student support. Enhancing nursing student support services in nursing programs can potentially enhance retention, progression, and completion, and ultimately increase the nursing workforce.

Keywords

Daily hassles; Mindfulness; Nonacademic factors; Nursing; Stress; Test performance

Disciplines

Education | Nursing

File Format

pdf

File Size

1535 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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