Promoting Advanced Certifications

Nurse Certification and Test Anxiety

“…Other factors such as small employer financial reward, fear of failure, and multiple demands on time may play a larger role for some nurses. [6][7][8]…”

“…This suggests that although test anxiety is a factor, it might be most impactful at the highest percentile, and thus, the research team did not attribute all the variances to test anxiety. Other factors such as small employer financial reward, fear of failure, and multiple demands on time may play a larger role for some nurses 6-8 …”

“…The scores are categorized into low, normal or average, high normal, moderately high, high, and extremely high test anxiety levels. The WTAS has high internal consistency with a Cronbach α range of 0.84 to 0.89 [8][9][10] and a high composite reliability value of 0.88. 12 In addition, demographic variables were collected, including certification status, age, sex, race, years of experience, role, primary shift worked, highest nursing degree, and specialty area.…”

“…[5][6][7] Nurses report that barriers to becoming certified include not enough time to prepare, the expense of the examination and continuing education, test-taking anxiety, fear of failure, lack of employer rewards, and lack of interest. [6][7][8] Nursing researchers who were working to understand challenges with increasing nurse certification rates in the 7 hospitals in this study chose to examine the role of test anxiety after educators at the sites reported that nurses display high levels of test anxiety related to other tests such as the annual electrocardiogram (ECG) testing, despite resources provided for studying and opportunities for remediation. Educators reported that some nurses did not appear on the day of their ECG examination to avoid the test altogether, and they believed that high test anxiety impacted their performance.…”

“…Nurses can be intrinsically motivated to become certified by personal satisfaction, personal accomplishment, and validation of their expertise and are extrinsically motivated by financial incentives, employer recognition, increased marketability, and prestige 5-7 . Nurses report that barriers to becoming certified include not enough time to prepare, the expense of the examination and continuing education, test-taking anxiety, fear of failure, lack of employer rewards, and lack of interest 6-8 …”