Examining the barriers to BSN prelicensure education among ADN students: A quantitative follow-up

Abstract

Community colleges play an integral role in the prelicensure education of registered nurses in the United States, with nearly half of newly licensed registered nurses prepared for practice with the Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN); Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2015). Shorter program duration, lower tuition costs, closer proximity to home, and favorable admission policies make ADN programs highly attractive to students, specifically nontraditional students. In spite of this, a concerted effort toward baccalaureate preparation has occurred over the past several decades. Prominent nursing organizations have called for baccalaureate preparation in the nursing profession. The Institutes of Medicine (2010), called for expansion of Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) preparation by registered nurses to 80% by 2020. More recently in 2019, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) issued a position statement calling for the baccalaureate degree to serve as the minimum educational preparation for entry into professional nursing practice (AACN, 2019). A descriptive cross-sectional survey research design was chosen to examine the perceived barriers to BSN prelicensure nursing education by ADN students in the State of Illinois. This study is a quantitative follow-up to a qualitative focus group study by the researchers (Petges & Sabio, 2020; Sabio & Petges, 2020). Results indicate that multiple competing responsibilities, often associated with nontraditional student status, exert an appreciable influence in the choice of educational preparation toward the registered nurse credential.