Learning Objective #1: Describe the relevance of personal characteristics to nursing students' academic performance

Learning Objective #2: Identify two interventions to support students' personal styles in the classroom

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Communication among health care professionals is essential to efficient, safe patient care. Individual communication style is influenced by personal characteristics, especially psychological type and explanatory style. As health care personnel and those receiving health care communicate, their personal characteristics affect the success of their communications. In a complex health care environment, this success is essential to safe, optimal patient outcomes. Additionally, as academic performance requirements for nursing continue to rise, it becomes increasingly significant to understand what skills students bring to the educational setting. This study involves assessment and evaluation of the personal characteristics of nursing students and their influence on students' communication, adjustment to nursing school, and academic performance. Each semester, grade point average, and at the end of the program, NCLEX exam success, will be examined in terms of these measures of personal characteristics. Preliminary data for this presentation offer a profile of students in the first semester of nursing school and represent first-round data for an on-going longitudinal, correlational study. Participants are undergraduate and master's entry students at a large, New England, Research Extensive University. Following completion of IRB procedures, participants (N =150) completed the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory, Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale, Attributional Style Questionnaire, and Modified Fatigue Symptom Checklist, during the first week of their first semester in nursing school. At week 10, undergraduate students completed the Students Adjustment to College Questionnaire. At the end of the first semester of enrollment, grade point average was collected for each participant. Correlations, t-tests, and other statistical analyses demonstrate patterns of personal characteristics among the participants and suggest trends in interrelationships among the variables examined. Preliminary findings also suggest potential faculty interventions to strengthen the quality of students' early learning experiences in nursing, and offer promise to enhance the strength of the incoming nursing workforce.