Academic failure and its predictors in Baccalaureate nursing students: A longitudinal study

To describe the sociodemographic and academic characteristics of nursing students who report academic failure and to identify the determinants of academic failure (no degree on time) in a population of nursing students.

Although prior studies have shown that academic failure is influenced by multiple factors, the studies mentioned have mostly focused on specific single variables associated with academic failure, and they have reported inconsistent results.

A prospective follow-up study design was used in an Italian Baccalaureate Nursing Degree program. A total sample of 2,040 at baseline and a random subsample of 753 students were considered for academic failure determinants. The study followed the recommendations of STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational studies in Epidemiology).

We included in the model academic background, self-efficacy, sociodemographic variables and self-efficacy in psychomotor skills and motivation. We used the Academic Nurse Self-Efficacy Scale (ANSEs), the Nursing Self-Efficacy in Psychomotor Skill Scale (NSE-PS) and the Motivation Nursing Students' Scale (MNSS) which have been validated on nursing students. For the assessment of predictors of academic failure, a two-stage hierarchical logistic regression analysis was performed.

Students who had academic failure were 69.4% of the sample. Predictors of academic failure were the secondary school certification grade, the university pre-admission test score; the academic self-efficacy, self-efficacy in psychomotor skills and clinical training examination grades were additional predictors.

The secondary school certification grade, the University pre-admission test score, low academic self-efficacy, low self-efficacy in psychomotor skills and low clinical training examination grades were predictors of academic failure in nursing students.

Our findings suggest that the universities could consider a cut-off in the pre-admission test score as a critical value for identifying students who are likely to fail. In addition, nursing faculty staff should consider strategies for developing self-efficacy and motivation.