Degree Name
Nursing Practice, DNP
Publication Date
12-1-2025
First Advisor
Sandy King
Second Advisor
Chandra Carter
Abstract
The nursing shortage remains a concern in healthcare. Increasing the number of students who complete nursing programs and enter the profession can help with the demand for nurses in the workforce. Nursing programs face challenges with student retention, which limits the number of nurses entering the profession. The quality improvement project aimed to examine the effects of a peer mentorship program on first-year associate degree nursing students’ perception of support and course completion rates. The purpose is to impact student retention and sense of support in an Associate Degree Nursing Program (ADN) through peer mentorship. The project was guided by Jeffreys’ Nursing Universal Retention and Success Model and Lewin’s Change Theory. Senior students mentored first-year students through a structured mentorship program. A mixed-methods design was used to analyze results on first-year students' course pass rates and perceptions of support. The Fisher’s exact test was conducted to measure the impact of mentorship on course completion. The results showed no statistically significant difference in course completion rates between mentored and non-mentored students, with p-values of 0.20, 0.043, and 0.12; two of the three courses were above the p = 0.05 threshold. Descriptive statistics were used to measure students’ perceptions of support, using a 4-point Likert-scale survey. The mean score of 3.83 (SD = 0.31) indicates that students felt a strong sense of support. While course completion rates showed no significant difference, the findings support the literature that peer mentoring fosters a sense of support, helping students succeed.
Rights Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Vittoria, Anh, "Quality Improvement Project Nursing Student Retention Strategies: A Focus on Peer Mentoring" (2025). Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects. 258.
https://arch.astate.edu/dnp-projects/258
