Predictors for success for first semester, second-degree Bachelor of Science in Nursing students

Second-degree Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) programmes have grown rapidly in the past 5 years to respond to the nursing shortage in many countries. The purposes of this study are to describe the relationships among age, prerequisite grades, previous degree grade point averages (GPAs), admissions test scores and first semester test scores, and to investigate the most influential predictor for success in the first semester in the nursing program. Pre-existing data from academic records were used. There were 60 participants and SPSS version 15.0 was used to analyze the data. The results show that age has no relationship with the first semester performance. Fifty-four per cent of variance in the first semester GPAs (R(2) =0.54) was explained by previous degree GPAs, prerequisite GPAs and admissions test scores in the second-degree nursing student population. The most influential predictor for success for the first semester of the second-degree BSN program is admissions tests scores.