Factors Influencing Retention of Students in an RN-to-BSN Program

 Background.  RN-to-BSN nursing programs fulfill a needed link to the BSN degree for nurses who hold associate degrees or diploma degrees.  Although enrollment rates are currently on the rise for all nursing programs retention remains an issue.  Improving retention in nursing education, particularly RN-to-BSN programs, will help meet the demands for increasing numbers of BSN-educated nurses.

Purpose.  The purpose of this study was to describe factors that restricted or promoted retention among RN-to-BSN students and examine if there was a difference in the measure of these factors between a group of senior students who were retained and a group of junior students who were at risk for attrition with the overall goal to provide guidance for strategies to facilitate nursing student retention.  The descriptive values for environmental factors, institutional interaction and integration factors, personal academic factors, college academic facilities factors, and friend support factors among a sample of RN-to-BSN students as well as rank order of the means scores were examined.  The means scores for each factor were tested for significance between junior and senior students.

Theoretical Framework.  Jeffreys’s (2004) nursing undergraduate retention and success (NURS) model, a conceptual framework, was used to guide the study.

Methods.  A non-experimental, descriptive, comparison design was used.  Analysis was completed by descriptive techniques, and comparisons were made using independent t-tests.

Results.  Although all of the factors were found to be supportive, environmental factors were the least supportive and support from family and friends factors were found to the most supportive.

Conclusion: More studies are needed focused on the RN-to-BSN student population to validate the findings of this study related to factors that restrict and support retention among this population so strategies can be developed to address the issues.