Nursing is a Team Sport: Sideline Coaching to Achieve NCLEX-RN Success

Purpose: To measure the effect of Academic Coaching on Nursing students academic success, perceptions of the coaching relationship, perceived NCLEX-RN exam readiness and NCLEX-RN success

Methods: Descriptive, comparative correlational research study

ABSTRACT

A­­­­­­cademic coaching is one educational intervention cited in the literature as a strategy to assist students to achieve academic success, additionally it helps to formulate strong faculty-student relationships that students perceive as paramount to facilitate their academic success. A descriptive comparative and correlational research study was conducted to explore the relationships among the students' academic success; perceptions of the academic coaching relationship; perceived NCLEX-RN exam readiness; and NCLEX-RN exam success.  The O'Hara Model of Academic Coaching, based on Peplau's Theory of Interpersonal Relations in Nursing served as the theoretical basis for the study

The O'Hara Perception of the Coaching Relationship (PCR) was used in this study to measure students’ perceptions. The PCR instrument was a newly developed valid and reliable tool. Data were collected from 51 senior baccalaureate nursing students at one university in southeast Pennsylvania, who participated in an 8-week academic coaching experience with their assigned faculty coach. There were four research questions generated for this study. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlations, t-tests, discriminate analysis, chi-square, and one-way analysis of variance. Two out of the four research questions did not achieve statistical power due to the low sample size. These same two research questions were not statistically significant. Students’ total scores on their perceptions of the coaching relationship were high. There was a statistically significant difference between the pre and post coaching HESI exit exam scores. Major categories were identified on students’ responses to three open-ended questions on coaching.

The discussion of the findings, implication for nursing, conclusions and recommendations for future research were presented. The findings of this study contributed to advancing nursing knowledge in the areas of nursing research, science and education. This study does support the newly developed O’Hara Model of Academic Coaching. The high NCLEX-RN exam first time pass rate in this study is also noteworthy. More research on the role of academic coaching is warranted.

Results: Statistical signficance on Academic success, NCLEX-RN success; High positive perceptions of the Academic coaching relationship and NCLEX-RN readiness.

Conclusion: Many Implications for further resarch, nursing education.