Award Date

May 2023

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Educational Psychology, Leadership, and Higher Education

First Committee Member

Federick Ngo

Second Committee Member

Blanca Rincón

Third Committee Member

Vanessa Vongkulluksn

Fourth Committee Member

Xue Xing

Number of Pages

200

Abstract

There is a nursing shortage in the United States which has become even more apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite qualified applicants, thousands of students are turned away from educational programs each year as programs reach capacity limits. The rejection may have social, psychological, and economic consequences for the student. Students faced with rejection need to make decisions whether to continue their pursuit of nursing or go a different direction. This exploratory quantitative study aims to understand the trajectories of students that are not admitted into a capacity restricted nursing program at a community college in the Southwestern United States. Between fall 2016 and fall 2020 there were 1,442 unique applicants to the institution’s two-year associate degree in nursing program (2,142 applications were submitted by these students between fall 2016 and fall 2021). In total 681 of these applicants received at least one rejection letter. Data examined in this study included application submissions, demographics, course-taking behaviors from college transcripts, and a retrospective self-administered survey. As there is currently not a single theory for educational rejection in non-traditional college students, I framed this study pulling from Bean and Metzner’s (1985) nontraditional undergraduate student attrition conceptual model, theories of rejection, and Social Cognitive Career Theory (Lent, Brown, and Hackett, 1994). Findings from the study determined there were demographic differences, particularly by race, in acceptance, reapplication decisions, course-taking behaviors, and college persistence. Reapplicants differed from those that did not reapply on measures of self-efficacy, perceived barriers, support from parents, persistence, Pell Grant eligibility, interactions with faculty, and involvement in extracurricular activities. Understanding the post-rejection academic and occupational decisions of applicants can aid higher education institutions in utilizing resources to increase student persistence and completion.

Keywords

applicant rejection; career decision making; college persistence; college transcripts; nursing; Social Cognitive Career Theory

Disciplines

Education | Nursing

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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