The relationship among multiple assessments of nursing education outcomes

Three internal and three external outcome measures generated data for this longitudinal study. The internal outcome measures were nursing GPA, nonnursing GPA, and clinical evaluations of students during eight clinical rotations. The external evaluations were NCLEX scores, the graduates' self-rating of their competency in meeting program objectives, and their immediate supervisors' ratings on the identical competency rating scale. Data analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficients revealed significant correlations among all internal measures of academic outcomes with one external measure, the NCLEX score. There was no correlation between any nursing measure of outcome and the supervisor's ratings. There was a modest correlation between the supervisors' rating and the nonnursing GPA. The faculty clinical evaluation was the only significant correlation found between the alumni rankings and any other measure of outcome. There was no correlation between the supervisors' and the graduates' ratings.