Meeting the At-Risk Challenge: Empowering Nursing Students Through Mentoring

Abstract

Wanting to improve student retention, progression, and graduation, the nursing faculty of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas developed a program for undergraduate students. Designated faculty mentors are available for academically at-risk students, or any student wanting to improve learning skills. Through mentoring sessions, students are helped to assess their learning difficulties, develop individualized prescription plans for learning, gain support during implementation of learning strategies, and evaluate results. Implemented in 2002, the program reflects positive outcomes. Of the 29 students who were referred to the program, only 3 were unsuccessful in passing their nursing courses. Student evaluations of the program reflect the value of the mentoring experience. The program has subsequently developed in the areas of advertising, diagnostic student testing, and student access to support resources.

Retention Initiatives Used by Professional Bachelor's Athletic Training Program Directors

“…Since there are similarities between nursing programs and ATPs, the most common practices identified by nursing programs to improve student retention might prove beneficial to athletic training students, faculty, and administrators. The nursing literature has suggested that improving public knowledge of the nursing profession, 17 providing students with peer study sessions, 18,19 socializing students early on in their educational career, 19,20 and providing students with a mentoring program [19][20][21] can improve retention rates. Further, retention initiatives data suggest that persistence likely occurs when a student has access to services that promote meaningful learning opportunities, 22 which in general education refers to tutoring programs, writing centers, etc.…”

Perceptions of Athletic Training Education Program Directors on their Students' Persistence and Departure Decisions

“…Nursing programs have developed student orientation seminars (Campbell & Dickson, 1996) and student faculty mentoring sessions (Candela, Kowalski, Cyrkiel, & Warner, 2004) for at-risk students. These orientation sessions help socialize students into the nursing program and faculty mentoring sessions assist students in defining their difficulties and developing strategies to help them overcome their challenges and persist in the program.…”

“…Improving public knowledge of the AT profession (Wells, 2003), providing students with peer study sessions (Higgins, 2004;Lockie & Burke, 1999), socializing students early on in their educational career (Candela et al, 2004;Lockie & Burke, 1999), and providing students with a mentoring program (Candela et al, 2004;Lockie & Burke, 1999;Matteson-Kane & Clarren, 2003) have the potential to translate to athletic training education. It remains unknown if ATEPs use any of these initiatives or any other programs to help reduce student attrition.…”

An exploration of perceptions of Associate of Science in Nursing students related to transcultural nursing experiences

“…Asians and Hispanics will increase 5% and 6%, respectively, during the same period (Tiedt & Tiedt, 2002). By 2010, a third of the population will be ethnic minorities, and foreign-born residents will be at an all-time high of 24.8 million (Candela, Cyrkiel, Kowalski, & Warner, 2004). Eight percent of the population will have a language other than English as their primary language (Weise, 2006).…”