Minority nursing students: strategies for retention

The development of a nursing workforce that reflects the racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity of the nation's population continues to be a major challenge. Many minority disadvantaged nursing students face special challenges when successfully navigating their way and transitioning into the nursing curriculum. They need developmental or remedial courses (math, reading, and writing) and they face communication barriers and financial difficulties. The purpose of this pilot study was to identify the learning needs of minority nursing students and to implement a retention program to help them succeed. To determine the relationship between enrichment hours and course performances, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted using SPSS. While students who passed their courses had greater mean hours of enrichment than students who did not pass, the differences were not statistically significant. Students who graduated spent more hours in enrichment than students who did not graduate. Graduating students spent an average of 113 hours in enrichment during their program compared to students who did not graduate, and who spent an average of only 50 hours in enrichment. This difference was statistically significant [F = 44.50; df 1.98; p < .001].