Prediction of freshman students' success in a baccalaureate nursing program

The best predictor of achievement in college when cognitive and noncognitive variables were tested in two classes of freshmen nursing students (1975 and 1976) at Wilkes College, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, was the Aptitude Test for Nursing. Cognitive variables significant in 1975 were mathematics Scholastic Aptitude Test scores and high school rank, while in 1976 arithmetic formulation entered into the regression equations as did the noncognitive variable of conformity. A discrepancy was found between 1975 and 1976 predictor variables of dropping out of nursing. For the 1975 freshman class, science grade point average and the support scale of the Gordon Survey of Interpersonal Values were the best predictors of dropping out of the nursing program; in the 1976 class, nursing GPA alone was the best predictor of dropping out. Although an intercorrelation was noted between science GPA and nursing GPA, the success of predicting dropping out of nursing in relationship to science GPA and nursing GPA appeared to be unstable.