Title III

Data-Informed Decisions in Nursing

 

Retention, Assessment, & Preparation (RAP) Project

 

Did you know that California is 50th among all states with respect to the number of nurses per capita? As California’s population increases and ages, this nursing shortage is expected to worsen even more. In response to this growing shortage, the State Legislature adopted SB1309, an initiative designed to graduate an additional 3,000 nurses per year. Through this legislation, CR’s Associate Degree Nursing (ADN) - RN Program has received a grant to take steps towards improving the retention and success levels of students in the program. Sally Urban, RN, MSN, is the RAP Project Manager working under Pat Girczyc, the Health Occupations Director, to achieve the grant objectives. 

 

The grant objectives include:

· Developing a student assessment and remediation program

· Assessing student readiness for the ADN program and requiring that students demonstrate readiness

· Developing and providing access to educational pre-entry coursework (tutoring and/or instruction) for students who fail to demonstrate readiness for nursing coursework

· Ensuring that students required to participate in educational pre-entry coursework are not disadvantaged in the program enrollment process

· Planning, developing, and implementing a retention program for students enrolled in the ADN program

 

Data collection and analysis activities for the Nursing Retention, Assessment, and Preparation Project include: 

 

· Piloting a diagnostic assessment tool and plan for remedial instruction and support

· Developing and implementing a tracking system for all identified students and their progress

· Monthly evaluation of instruction and tutoring plans

· Conducting formative evaluations to assess faculty and student feedback regarding pre-nursing coursework

· Developing and conducting a survey of current program students to assess their experience with campus support services

· Conduct exit interviews with all students who do not enroll in the RN program

· Developing and implementing an evaluation strategy for every intervention

 

RAP Project staff collaborated and coordinated the research activities of the grant with the Institutional Research Department staff to ensure high quality data collection and analysis is conducted. RAP staff have requested support from the IR Department to consult on the data retrieval and analysis plan for determining ‘cut scores’ for admissions and tracking, as well as survey development support.