A Comparison of Tennessee State Board of Nursing Pass Rates for Associate and Baccalaureate Degree Nursing Programs Five Years Before and Five Years After Integration of High-Fidelity Simulation Into the Nursing Curriculum

Nursing has many facets but the primary concern has always been the patient. Nursing education has restructured itself to produce patient-centered professional registered nurses by preparing them for a diverse society. Of course, it is unrealistic to believe that graduates of nursing education programs have received all the training they need upon graduation. Hospitals are dependent on stellar nursing educators to roll out a staunch orientation program for new graduates and infuse a passion for new knowledge with expert clinicians. In recent years, high-fidelity simulation has emerged as a popular teaching tool in the nursing education arena to assist novice and expert health care professionals with bridging the gaps between nursing theory and practice. The purpose of this study was to determine if the integration of high-fidelity health care simulation in the nursing curriculum for Tennessee area associate and baccalaureate degree schools of nursing made a difference in the first-time pass rates of the Nursing Clinical Licensure Exam (NCLEX). The sample group was comprised of all RN nursing programs in the state of Tennessee, including 14 associate degree programs and 23 baccalaureate programs. An instrument, The Tennessee High-Fidelity Simulation Asset Mapping Survey, was used to collect specific information concerning use of high-fidelity simulation within the nursing curriculum. A 2x2x1 factorial analysis of variance was run on the data to determine whether there was any significant interaction effect on the dependent variable (NCLEX scores). The independent variables were the two levels of nursing programs and two demarcations of fixed time frames: 5 years before and 5 years after integration of high-fidelity health care simulation into the nursing program. The variables of nursing program and time frame were correlated to determine the relationship between these two variables. Corollaries of the statistical testing overwhelmingly indicated the need to reject the hypothesis that the use of health care simulation in higher education associate and baccalaureate nursing programs resulted in improvement of meeting learning outcomes as measured by state board examination pass rates (NCLEX).