ABSTRACT
This study was designed to measure the impact of a College of Nursing's (CON) Retention Program on students enrolled in a baccalaureate degree nursing program. Within the last ten years, undergraduate nurses increasingly have utilized the CON retention program. These students traditionally face a number of barriers to their academic endeavors. This study was designed to assess the effect of the CON program on the barriers to academic success of students who entered the CON in the Fall classes of 1991, 1992 and 1993. The sample size was 320 students. The control group consisted of 137 students who received no intervention and the experimental group was comprised of 183 students who attended intervention sessions with the Retention Coordinator in the CON. It was hypothesized that the most successful students during this period (1991-1993) were the most frequent attendees of the CON retention program intervention sessions. The alternative hypothesis was that those persons who did not attend the sessions, but were still highly persistent and successful, were enrollees who had entered with high entrance credentials as demonstrated by the transfer grade point averages (GPA). The results of this study indicated the need, use and value of this systematic approach to retention.
