The United States is now in the midst of a major nursing shortage that is predicted to get worse over the next ten years (Kurzen, 2005). The Health Resources and Services Administration reports that all 50 states will suffer from a nursing shortage by 2020 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2004). This means that there will be a…

Critical thinking is a required curricular outcome for nursing education; however, the literature shows a gap related to valid and reliable tools to measure critical thinking specific to nursing and relating that critical thinking measurement to meaningful outcomes. This study examined critical thinking scores, as measured by Assessment…

Nurse education programs are implementing standardized assessments without evaluating their effectiveness. Graduates of associate degree nursing programs continue to be unsuccessful with licensure examinations, despite standardized testing and stronger admission criteria. This problem is also prevalent for LPN-to-RN education programs due to a…