Date of Award

Summer 2024

Document Type

Project – Full Written

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Committee Chair

Tracy Arnold

Abstract

Nursing schools have been challenged to impact attrition and retention by creating an environment that increases student success. This DNP project was created to impact the current nursing shortage by increasing the number of nursing students who were retained after the first semester of nursing school. The DNP Project Leader designed a structured orientation program consisting of a 2-day in-person orientation and an online repository of resources. The DNP project sought to increase retention and provide pre-licensure students with gained skills to progress in the nursing program after the first semester in nursing school. The in-person orientation program provided participants with a structured clinical orientation, lab orientation, and student success resources. An online repository of resources was created to provide added support throughout the first semester. Based on statistical tracking, students who successfully progressed after the first semester, on average, accessed more material from the online repository. Students participated in a pretest/posttest to evaluate their perception of overall confidence in accessing school of nursing resources, managing time, utilizing test-taking strategies, and current study habits. After the DNP project, descriptive analysis revealed an increase in students’ perceptions of gained skills needed to be successful in the nursing program; however, the DNP project did not show an increase in retention rate.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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