Elsevier

Nurse Education Today

Volume 31, Issue 8, November 2011, Pages 849-854
Nurse Education Today

Predictors of academic performance of nursing and paramedic students in first year bioscience

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2010.12.021Get rights and content

Summary

The expanding scope of practice of paramedics and nurses demands they possess a sophisticated knowledge of bioscience to enable them to think critically and make rational clinical decisions. It is well documented that nursing students struggle with bioscience but there are no studies examining the performance of paramedic students in this crucial subject. In this study, we compared the academic performance of first year nursing, paramedic and nursing/paramedic double degree students in a bioscience subject. Regression analyses were used to identify predictors of academic success. Data revealed a low success rate in bioscience for all three degree programs (63.2, 58.8, and 67.6% respectively) and a strong correlation between academic success in bioscience and non-bioscience subjects (r2 = 0.49). The best predictors of overall academic success were the University Admission Index score and mature entry into the course. Previous study of biology was associated with an increased bioscience and overall GPA but not with non-bioscience grades. Discriminant analysis was used to develop a model that could predict overall academic success with an accuracy of 78.5%. These criteria may be useful during the admission process and for the early identification of students at risk of failure.

Introduction

Bioscience comprises a fundamental part of tertiary nursing and paramedic degree programs, providing the scientific basis from which clinical practice is derived. A solid grounding in the basic sciences is a pivotal step in the development of proficient practitioners with the necessary knowledge, level of clinical competency and complex decision making skills required in today's highly technical and rapidly evolving health care environment. As the scope of practice of nurses and paramedics in Australia expands from a traditional role to one of an independent allied health care practitioner so too will the required level of understanding of basic science and the disease process. An increased knowledge of the biosciences is crucial in order to produce a practitioner with the critical thinking skills necessary to make independent, rational clinical decisions (???, Driscoll et al., 2005).

Nursing students have a well documented love–hate relationship with bioscience. A survey of students completing a tertiary nursing course in New Zealand revealed a positive attitude towards the role of bioscience in nursing education and practice (Friedel and Treagust, 2005). Similar findings were reported in studies from the United Kingdom (Davis, 2010) and Sweden (Andersson and Edberg, 2010), highlighting the global importance of bioscience to the nursing profession; not only in terms of improving clinical practice but also through the development of more general skills that facilitate access and evaluation of new knowledge and the vocabulary necessary to understand it. However, in spite of its importance in the curriculum, bioscience represents a significant hurdle for many nursing students (Friedel and Treagust, 2005, Jordan et al., 1999, McKee, 2002). Bioscience remains a source of anxiety in nursing students, with the majority reporting that they found the language and terminology difficult to comprehend and that the study required for the subject was time consuming (Friedel and Treagust, 2005, Jordan et al., 1999). It is, therefore, not surprising that academic performance in biosciences is related to a student's self-efficacy for science (Andrew, 1998) and can be a strong predictor of overall success in the nursing curriculum (Griffiths et al., 1995, Wong and Wong, 1999).

In contrast to the nursing literature, there is very little data on paramedic education and existing data tends to focus on clinical skills and competencies. This is largely due to the fact that paramedicine, as an academic discipline, is still in its infancy, with the first undergraduate course in Australia not offered until 1994 (Lord, 2003). Anecdotal evidence from our university suggests that paramedic students are similar to those enrolled in nursing in that they struggle with bioscience and have a large attrition rate. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was threefold: first, to compare the academic performance of nursing, paramedic and nursing/paramedic double degree students in a first year bioscience subject; second, to identify potential predictors of academic performance in both bioscience and non-bioscience subjects and third, develop a model to predict the probability of student success in order to improve student selection processes and/or identify students who may be at risk of failing.

Section snippets

Study design

This cross sectional study examined the relationship between students' academic performance in a first year, first semester, undergraduate bioscience subject with a number of potential predictors of academic performance. The data set was obtained from official university records and de-identified to maintain students' anonymity by coding the raw data and removing names and university identification numbers. Approval for this study was granted by the university's Human Ethics Committee.

Sample

Data were

Results

Data describing the 426 students in this study are shown in Table 1. Whereas the gender of students in the paramedic program was evenly split, students in the nursing and double degree programs were predominantly female (both p < 0.01). Nursing students were more likely to have a mature entry path than those taking the double degree (p < 0.01). Nurses were also more likely than paramedic and double degree students to have both previous tertiary education (both p < 0.01) and health-related work

Discussion

In planning successful and timely degree completions, the ability to identify valid predictors of academic performance is critical to enable appropriate admission decisions and identification of students at risk of failure. In this study, we found a strong relationship between the academic success of nursing, paramedic and nursing/paramedic double degree students in first semester bioscience and non-bioscience subjects. Mature entry, UAI score, previous tertiary experience and high school

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the help of Ms Jillian Taylor in retrieving the data used in this study.

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