Does reading ability predict student success? A scoping review.

OBJECTIVES: Nursing students do not only have to understand the content they read, but they must also analyze, synthesize, and think critically as these skills are required for success in clinical practice. This review investigates if testing reading in students can predict outcomes of student success in nursing programs. DESIGN: A scoping review of the literature on reading assessments in nursing education. DATA SOURCES: Databases explored included CINAHL, ERIC, and MEDLINE and included English language papers published from January 2001 to November 2022. REVIEW METHODS: Joanna Briggs Institute scoping review methods informed this review. RESULTS: Data were extracted from 34 full text papers and dissertations. All papers examined reading as an independent predictor of outcomes such as NCLEX-RN success, program completion, or early program success. Various reading tests delivered at admission were more likely to predict proximal outcomes such as early program success rather than more distal outcomes such as NCLEX-RN failure or program completion. CONCLUSION: Reading assessments are effective predictors of a student's potential for academic success in nursing programs which has many implications for admission and progression policies. Many areas for future research are proposed including examining the developmental nature of reading improvement across nursing programs, development of reading interventions, and building faculty capacity for reading support. This body of literature said very little about the impact of race and racism on reading as they relate to academic outcomes which also must receive attention in future research.

Supporting underrepresented students in health sciences: a fuzzy cognitive mapping approach to program evaluation.

BACKGROUND: The Students Training in Academia, Health, and Research (STAHR) Program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) strives to help students from low-income families that have experienced educational challenges due to poverty and prepare them to enter, persist, and graduate from a health sciences degree program at UMKC. Students in the program participated in fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) sessions to ensure that all voices of the program were heard to improve program implementation, and student success, and contribute to an equitable educational environment. METHODS: Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping sessions for the 2020-2021 cohort of students (n = 52) were conducted to assess the strengths and weaknesses in program implementation, especially through the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Students' maps were coded by a team of researchers and then confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis. RESULTS: Statistical analyses reveal that mentorship, workshops, and social support helped students to work toward their goal of obtaining a professional health sciences degree, while a lack of time, remote learning, and outside stressors inhibited their opportunities for success. CONCLUSIONS: The findings from a multipronged analysis of mapping data demonstrate the value of this innovative approach to the field, especially when looking to incorporate student voices.

The role of mental health and protective factors in student academic persistence and retention during a global crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated challenges for millions of students globally, leading to enrollment cliff. This study addresses the existing research gap by investigating the influence of students' mental health and various protective factors (i.e., optimism, help-seeking behaviors, social support) on academic persistence, an indicator of student retention. We utilized the structural equation modeling approach to examine the effect of students' mental health conditions, risk perception of COVID-19 and protective factors on academic persistence through a sample of 1,051 students from 45 states. Students' mental health positively predicted academic persistence. Risk perception of COVID-19 was negatively associated with mental health but positively predicted academic persistence and help-seeking behaviors. Optimism fully mediated the effect of mental health on help-seeking behaviors but did not mediate the effect of risk perception on help-seeking behaviors. Social support positively predicted academic persistence. This study underscores the integral role of mental health and protective factors in supporting student retention. Universities should develop targeted programs to address students' mental health needs and promote protective behaviors. These initiatives can enhance academic persistence, thereby aiding in the retention of students affected by this pandemic or any future global crisis.

Explaining the practicum experiences of diagnostic radiography undergraduates in Australia and Ethiopia using the theory of human relatedness.

INTRODUCTION: Practice learning is critical to the development of clinical skills; hence placements are a major component of all pre-registration radiography programmes. Nonetheless, dissatisfaction with practicum experiences is a common reason why students consider leaving such programmes. Providing effective placements which promote retention may not only require better appreciation of students' clinical reflections, but also a more fundamental understanding of the implicit criteria they use to appraise a practicum. This study applied the theory of human relatedness (THR) to the placement experiences of radiography undergraduates to identify the evaluative mechanisms which may underpin these experiences. METHODS: A critical realist investigative approach was employed to reanalyse data regarding the practicum experiences of stakeholders involved in undergraduate diagnostic radiography programmes at two universities in Australia and Ethiopia against the eight core THR concepts, namely connectedness, disconnectedness, parallelism, enmeshment, belonging, reciprocity, mutuality, and synchrony. RESULTS: The findings identified all states of relatedness and processes/social competencies of the THR within the placement experiences of these stakeholders. The degree of positive relatedness a radiography student experiences within a practicum, irrespective of the setting, may affect their clinical performance. CONCLUSION: The findings support the argument that the THR may reflect an implicit set of criteria stakeholders use to evaluate clinical encounters. Additionally, these results are congruent with earlier investigations regarding the practicum reflections of other undergraduate healthcare students. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: To enhance student placement experiences, it is necessary to recognise the effect a student's sense of relatedness may have on their self-efficacy and proficiency, modifying pre-practicum preparation and assessment arrangements to inhibit disconnectedness and enmeshment, avoid the need for parallelism, and better cultivate connectedness, belonging, reciprocity, mutuality, and synchrony.

Use of machine learning to assess factors affecting progression, retention, and graduation in first-year health professions students in Qatar: a longitudinal study.

BACKGROUND: Across higher education, student retention, progression, and graduation are considered essential elements of students' academic success. However, there is scarce literature analyzing these attributes across health professions education. The current study aims to explore rates of student retention, progression, and graduation across five colleges of the Health Cluster at Qatar University, and identify predictive factors. METHODS: Secondary longitudinal data for students enrolled at the Health Cluster between 2015 and 2021 were subject to descriptive statistics to obtain retention, progression and graduation rates. The importance of student demographic and academic variables in predicting retention, progression, or graduation was determined by a predictive model using XGBoost, after preparation and feature engineering. A predictive model was constructed, in which weak decision tree models were combined to capture the relationships between the initial predictors and student outcomes. A feature importance score for each predictor was estimated; features that had higher scores were indicative of higher influence on student retention, progression, or graduation. RESULTS: A total of 88% of the studied cohorts were female Qatari students. The rates of retention and progression across the studied period showed variable distribution, and the majority of students graduated from health colleges within a timeframe of 4-7 years. The first academic year performance, followed by high school GPA, were factors that respectively ranked first and second in importance in predicting retention, progression, and graduation of health majors students. The health college ranked third in importance affecting retention and graduation and fifth regarding progression. The remaining factors including nationality, gender, and whether students were enrolled in a common first year experience for all colleges, had lower predictive importance. CONCLUSIONS: Student retention, progression, and graduation at Qatar University Health Cluster is complex and multifactorial. First year performance and secondary education before college are important in predicting progress in health majors after the first year of university study. Efforts to increase retention, progression, and graduation rates should include academic advising, student support, engagement and communication. Machine learning-based predictive algorithms remain a useful tool that can be precisely leveraged to identify key variables affecting health professions students' performance.

Predicting academic success of autistic students in higher education.

LAYMEN SUMMARY: What is already known about the topic?Autistic youths increasingly enter universities. We know from existing research that autistic students are at risk of dropping out or studying delays. Using machine learning and historical information of students, researchers can predict the academic success of bachelor students. However, we know little about what kind of information can predict whether autistic students will succeed in their studies and how accurate these predictions will be.What does this article add?In this research, we developed predictive models for the academic success of 101 autistic bachelor students. We compared these models to 2,465 students with other health conditions and 25,077 students without health conditions. The research showed that the academic success of autistic students was predictable. Moreover, these predictions were more precise than predictions of the success of students without autism.For the success of the first bachelor year, concerns with aptitude and study choice were the most important predictors. Participation in pre-education and delays at the beginning of autistic students' studies were the most influential predictors for second-year success and delays in the second and final year of their bachelor's program. In addition, academic performance in high school was the strongest predictor for degree completion in 3 years.Implications for practice, research, or policyThese insights can enable universities to develop tailored support for autistic students. Using early warning signals from administrative data, institutions can lower dropout risk and increase degree completion for autistic students.

A methodology to design, develop, and evaluate machine learning models for predicting dropout in school systems: the case of Chile.

School dropout is a structural problem which permanently penalizes students and society in areas such as low qualification jobs, higher poverty levels and lower life expectancy, lower pensions, and higher economic burden for governments. Given these high consequences and the surge of the problem due to COVID-19 pandemic, in this paper we propose a methodology to design, develop, and evaluate a machine learning model for predicting dropout in school systems. In this methodology, we introduce necessary steps to develop a robust model to estimate the individual risk of each student to drop out of school. As advancement from previous research, this proposal focuses on analyzing individual trajectories of students, incorporating the student situation at school, family, among other levels, changes, and accumulation of events to predict dropout. Following the methodology, we create a model for the Chilean case based on data available mostly through administrative data from the educational system, and according to known factors associated with school dropout. Our results are better than those from previous research with a relevant sample size, with a predictive capability 20% higher for the actual dropout cases. Also, in contrast to previous work, the including non-individual dimensions results in a substantive contribution to the prediction of leaving school. We also illustrate applications of the model for Chilean case to support public policy decision making such as profiling schools for qualitative studies of pedagogic practices, profiling students' dropout trajectories and simulating scenarios.

Strategies for change: thriving as an individual with a disabilty in STEMM.

Disability remains an underacknowledged and underdiscussed topic in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM). Social stigma and fear of negative outcomes have resulted in a consistent lack of disclosure. Disabilities cause social and professional difficulties for those that have them. While some faculty can be allies, past literature shows that steps must be taken to make disabilities visible in STEMM at both student and faculty levels. Here, we offer suggestions to better support faculty and students in enhancing the outcomes of individuals who have invisible disabilities. Critically, techniques such as abolishing stigma, universal learning, and better mentoring may improve the challenges faced by those who self-identify as an individual with a disability.

The lived experience of nursing students who were unsuccessful in an undergraduate nursing program-A narrative inquiry.

BACKGROUND: Historically, attrition rates among nursing students in the United States have been a significant problem. However, beyond academic struggles, little is known about the unsuccessful experiences of nursing students. A glimpse into unsuccessful nursing students' perceptions and stressors, other than academic requirements, provides a framework for nurse educators to develop an identification system for at-risk students. DESIGN: This study aimed to focus on the student perception of failure, beyond academic results. A phenomenological study using narrative inquiry methodology was used for the study. PARTICIPANTS: The purposive sampling approach included thirty-seven students who were unsuccessful in a baccalaureate nursing program. All students were interviewed and analysis was completed. METHODS: Our analysis revealed both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators presented as an important factor for each student's success. Although each participant had unique circumstances, common themes emerged. These findings support the need for support that goes beyond support with academic studies. RESULTS: Holistic admissions processes need to be utilized, ensuring the best candidates, are admitted to nursing programs. Admission criteria should expand beyond grade point average requirements, and possibly include some form of stress management evaluation, or consideration of extrinsic influences.

Advancing Diversity in Nursing Education: A Groundwater Approach.

There have been increased calls for a diverse nursing workforce to resolve health inequities. While the diversity of the nursing workforce slowly improves, it lags in comparison to the diversity of the United States population. The lack of diversity in academic nursing is the root cause of the lack of a diverse nursing workforce. A groundwater approach, as developed by the Racial Equity Institute, is used to analyze systemic barriers in nursing education that hinder achieving student diversity. Using this approach, recommendations are offered to educators and regulatory organizations to change policies and practices. Inclusive educational policies and teaching practices should be adopted to recruit and retain diverse students and faculty. Nursing education accrediting bodies must implement standards requiring programs to adopt holistic admission reviews and measurable diversity outcomes for students, faculty, and staff. The National Council of State Boards of Nursing must establish a common national licensure passing standard that is based either on graduation date or upon the first attempt and includes multiple attempts within a given time frame. A groundwater approach requires a mindset shift to focus on the environment and changes in practice and policy to overcome the current structural barriers in nursing education if there is ever to be a diverse nursing workforce.

Evidence-based strategies to advance BSN student diversity.

BACKGROUND: Minoritized nurses understand the cultural and contextual circumstances that lead to health disparities, yet they are underrepresented in the RN workforce. This underrepresentation can have serious health consequences. However, to have more representation, it must be understood the pipeline for diversity begins with the admission of diverse students into baccalaureate nursing education programs. PURPOSE: This manuscript describes an Initiative that increased the enrollment of students from underrepresented backgrounds and provided the students with the support necessary for retention through graduation. METHOD: The Initiative incorporated five evidence-based strategies that created a culturally responsive academic environment and enabled diverse students to succeed. RESULTS: Forty-two students were admitted to the baccalaureate nursing program. Thirty-six of the 42 remain in the program resulting in a retention rate of 86%. Six of the thirty-six recently graduated and the remaining 30 students are on track to graduate in their respective years. CONCLUSION: Through the use of the five-prong evidence-based strategies, the School was able to establish the infrastructure to support the academic advancement and achievement of students from diverse backgrounds. The impact is yet to be determined, but more diverse individuals will graduate, suggestive of a more diverse workforce which will hopefully advance the nation toward health equity.

Logit models, the area under receiver characteristic curves, sensitivity, and specificity for Co-enrollment density in college networks dataset.

This article describes the data related to co-enrollment density (CD), a new network clustering index, that can predict persistence and graduation. The data hold the raw results and charts obtained with the algorithm for CD introduced in ``Co-Enrollment Density Predicts Engineering Students' Persistence and Graduation: College Networks and Logistic Regression Analysis.'' There are data for eight institutions that show CD as a predictor for graduation at four years, graduation at six years, and ever graduated. The files were processed using R to estimate CD at one, two, three, and four years. Logistic regression models, receiver operating characteristic curves, specificity, sensitivity, and cut-off points were estimated for each model. The R code to reproduce the metanalysis for the summary data is included. The displays for the logistic regression models, receiver operating characteristic curves, density curves for classes, models, and parameters are included.

Exploring Tertiary Health Science Student Willingness or Resistance to Cultural Competency and Safety Pedagogy.

There is an increasing body of literature that considers the relevance and experiences of cultural competency and safety training in health professional students. However, less is written about Australian tertiary learners' experiences of engaging with cultural competency training. The aim of this study is to explore tertiary students' willingness or resistance to cultural competency and safety pedagogy. Qualitative student feedback to a teaching unit was collected and triangulated with data from focus groups with tutors. Results were thematically analyzed. Willingness and resistance to cultural competency and safety teaching emerged as two key themes. Willingness to engage with the unit was largely due to student interest in the content, teaching environment and relevance of cultural competency to students' future practice. Resistance was linked to the students feeling personally attacked, or culturally confronted, with tutors noting the topics around sexuality and white privilege being more resisted. Acknowledging reasons for student resistance and developing strategies to reduce resistance can facilitate more student engagement with cultural competency topics, ultimately leading to their future provision of culturally competent healthcare.

A Unique Approach to Project-Based Learning (PjBL) in a Veterinary Anatomy Course.

INTRODUCTION: Project-based learning (PjBL) is a teaching methodology designed to engage students in solving real-world problems, acknowledging that students are active agents of their learning process. This methodology has historically been popular in architecture and industrial sciences; however, its use in teaching veterinary anatomy is scarcely published. METHODS: Using information and communication technologies, the PjBL methodology was implemented in a first-year veterinary anatomy course. The methodology included teamwork and the selection of a routine object in the veterinary clinic at the beginning of the academic semester. The project's goal was to analyze the object and associate it with both a domestic animal species and an anatomical region, along with making and presenting a video or a simulation model about the object. RESULTS: More than 80% of students prefer active learning classes compared to traditional classes. In addition, 66% and 86% of students indicate that PjBL allowed them to improve their understanding of theoretical content for the first and second years of post-implementation, respectively. Students' self-assessment indicates that more than 80% of the students (first and second year post-implementation) felt they were responsible for the execution of the project, able to conduct research, and able to develop autonomous learning skills. After 2 years of PjBL implementation, failure rates in the course decreased by 21%. DISCUSSION: In general, PjBL results show that veterinary students prefer active learning activities that allow them to learn in a team-based learning process as well as to develop soft skills such as self-learning, responsibility, and teamwork. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40670-021-01205-1.

Strategies for retention of nursing students: A scoping review.

Retention of students in nursing programs is a costly concern that affects the supply and demand of nurses to the healthcare system. Successful retention strategies require consideration of social and academic institutional systems with attention to student integration in a program. This systematic review explores implemented retention strategies in nursing programs worldwide and provides guidance for nursing programs and researchers considering the retention question. Joanna Briggs Institute scoping review methods informed this review. CINAHL, ERIC, PsychINFO, and MEDLINE, databases were searched from January 1998 to December 2019. Data was extracted from 112 full text papers and dissertations. Papers were of varying quality and inconsistently evaluated, usually lacking theoretical grounding. Student participants in strategies were preselected by racial minority status or through various markers of academic performance. Retention strategies described in the literature are single program and multifactorial, with mentorship, study skills, literacy and language approaches, and tutoring the most common components. Reports of graduation rates or attrition rates through comparison with a pre-strategy time period or a comparison group were the most informative evaluations. Whole-program strategies that provided pathway options to students based on reading assessments or other academic criteria were the most comprehensive and effective strategies presented in the literature.

Faculty and programmatic influences on the percentage of graduates of color from professional physical therapy programs in the United States.

The physical therapy profession in the United States suffers from a shortage of providers of color. This is unlikely to change with newly graduating students, as 2.6% of 2017 graduates were African American and 5.7% were Hispanic or Latino. Faculty mentorship has a more profound influence on the retention of underrepresented minority students as compared with students from privileged backgrounds, according to undergraduate literature. The influences of faculty characteristics on physical therapy graduates of color are unknown. The purpose of this study was to determine faculty and programmatic characteristics that could influence the percentage of physical therapy graduates of color. This study implemented the theory of academic capitalism to inform the results of a retrospective panel analysis, which used accreditation data from 2008 to 2017. Data from 231 programs was used to create fixed effects and random effects models to estimate the effects that faculty and program characteristics had on the percentage of graduates of color that a program produced. There was a statistically significant positive relationship between faculty of color and graduates of color (p < 0.001), but faculty must be sufficiently diverse before a program can expect a meaningful change in their percentage of graduates of color. Academic capitalist principles suggest that competition between programs for resources could negatively influence the proportion of graduates of color. Cause and effect associations between variables cannot be established. The authors concluded that professional physical therapy programs appeared to have increases in the percentages of graduates of color when they had more core faculty members of color.

Development and Psychometric Evaluation of the Professional Integration Factors Retention Strategies Survey.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Nursing students experience higher attrition rates than average college students due to the academic rigor of nursing programs. This study examined psychometric properties of the Professional Integration Factors Retention Strategies Survey (PIF-RSS), which measured constructs of faculty advisement and helpfulness, professional events, memberships, encouragement by friends in class, peer mentoring-tutoring, and enrichment programs. METHODS: The PIF-RSS survey was distributed to deans, directors, and program coordinators of traditional Bachelor's in Nursing programs. RESULTS: Following exploratory factor analysis, 47 items aligned within a 5-factor solution were retained. Reliability of the total instrument was .90. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides preliminary evidence of the psychometric properties of the PIF-RSS instrument. Additional studies are recommended to further examine instrument psychometric properties for different program types and populations.

Avoiding bad connection: Orientation phone calls foster student-faculty connection in an RN-BSN program.

BACKGROUND: Studies show that the primary reasons registered nurses (RNs) withdraw from registered nurse to bachelor of science in nursing (RN-BSN) programs are related to the challenge of sustaining work and family obligations while in school and having unclear expectations. It has been shown that nontraditional students facing these types of challenges benefit from programs that give strong sense of faculty connection and orient students to coursework by providing clear information. PURPOSE: The purpose of this project was to see if conducting one-on-one, script-guided orientation phone calls with individual students provided valuable programmatic information and established a sense of connection to faculty. METHODS: Six RN-to-BSN faculty conducted a combined 108 orientation telephone calls to individual, newly enrolled online RN-to-BSN students. The purpose of the orientation was to introduce general program expectations required to successfully complete courses, and provide students with a sense of connectedness with faculty. Faculty developed and distributed a survey (3, 6-point Likert scale response items and 2 open-ended questions) to understand the degree to which RN-to-BSN students valued the orientation phone call. RESULTS: Ninety-four percent (n = 101) of participating students agreed that the RN-BSN program orientation phone call resulted in feeling a "sense of connectedness" with the online program faculty member. Additionally, 95% (n = 102) agreed that the orientation phone call provided them with the necessary information to support success in their first course within an RN-BSN online program. CONCLUSION: One-on-one orientation telephone calls provided valuable program overview information and the personal conversational format conveyed to remote students faculty availability and an enhanced sense of connectedness.

Can students spare the time? Estimates of online course workload.

BACKGROUND: Literature on student workload focuses on land-based courses. Online students primarily participate by typing or reading. AIM: An online program was assessed for concerns about increased student workload using a qualitative design. METHODS: A qualitative case study method was used to assess online course activities to determine workload in five courses. Courses were explored using Barre and Esarey's (2016) estimator. Course faculty were included in assessment discussions and in course revisions. A data collection tool was developed to determine workload expectations for the courses' first week, a heavy week, and a light week. Within each of these weeks, activities included all writing, all reading, discussion posts, and literature searches. Workload assessment rules gauged student time on task, focusing on page density, text difficulty, reading or writing purpose and number of revisions. Authors developed a guideline for student evidence search time. RESULTS: Workloads in most courses were over the required institutional credit hours by 6-24 h per week. CONCLUSIONS: Using the Assessment of Student Workload and the data collection tool, faculty were able to review the courses and consider reading rates and out of class hours for activities improving alignment with institutional credit guidelines.