NUMBER OF CLINICAL HOURS IN THE NURSING PROGRAMS AND NATIONAL COUNCIL LICENSURE EXAMINATION FOR REGISTERED NURSES (NCLEX-RN) PASSING RATE

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX) passing rates and the number of clinical hours completed by a student in a nursing program in Kansas or Missouri. In addition, the following relationships were examined: the relationship between NCLEX passing rates and (1) the type of program (BSN vs. ADN); (2) the presence or absence of an internship in a program; (3) the number of internship clock hours; (4) whether the internship was administered on a full or part time basis; (5) the number of classroom credit hours in a program; (6) how the clinical clock hours were distributed among different types of clinical practice (direct patient care; simulation; observation; or other); (7) offering an NCLEX preparatory course; and (8) faculty characteristics (the percentage of faculty with associate's, bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees; the percentage of full time and part time faculty; the percentage of adjuncts and visiting faculty; and length of faculty tenure). No statistically significant correlation was found between NCLEX passing rates and the number of clock clinical hours. Results indicated that additional research on the programmatic variables is necessary to understand how these variables affect the NCLEX passing rates.