Nursing Students’ Nonacademic Barriers to Success on High Stakes Exams

Every nursing program wants its graduates to pass the NCLEX-RN licensure examination the first time they take it. For those who fail, entry into practice is delayed until they can pass the NCLEX-RN. The nursing programs that graduated students who fail may experience a loss of reputation, decreased numbers of potential applicants, and, ultimately, state board of nursing sanctions. In an effort to determine which students are likely to be successful in taking the NCLEX-RN, many programs have turned to end-of-program predictor exams such as the Health Education System Inc. (HESI) exit examination (E2) (Lauer & Yoho, 2013; Nibert & Morrison, 2013; Reinhardt, Keller, Summers, & Schultz, 2012; Simon & Augustus, 2014). Students who score greater than 900 on the HESI E2 have a 96.36% to 99.16% probability of passing the NCLECX-RN on their first attempt (Adamson & Britt, 2009; Young & Willson, 2012; Zweighaft, 2013). Nursing programs are very interested in identifying, and hopefully avoiding, barriers that may prevent their students’ academic success. Nearly all of the predictive literature that is available relates to academic barriers, such as GRE scores and prerequisite science grades, versus nonacademic barriers, such as stress, motivation, and competing work/family demands focus on the NCLEX-RN, not the HESI E2. Eddy and Epeneter (2002) suggest that nonacademic barriers, such as internal issues of anxiety and stress or external issues of family and financial demands are more important in predicting success but are much more challenging to study. Given the importance of nonacademic barriers and the 96.36% to 99.16% predictive accuracy of the first time scores on the HESI E2 to predict first time success on the NCLEX-RN, it is important that nurse educators also focus efforts on identifying nonacademic barriers. This descriptive, correlational study targeted graduating baccalaureate nursing students prior to their first attempt on the HESI E2. The study investigated the 15-item Internal and External Block Scale (IEBS) measuring nonacademic barriers, created by Arathuzik and Aber (1998), to determine whether there were statistically significant correlations between nonacademic barriers to success and performance on the end-of-program predictor exam HESI E2. Fifty-nine baccalaureate nursing students participated in this study. No statistically significant correlations were found between any of the individual internal barriers or the individual external barriers and the performance on the HESI E2. In addition, there were no significant correlations found when analyzing the summary score representing the mean of all internal barriers or the summary score representing the mean of all external barriers, in relation to performance on the HESI E2. While this study provided no statistically significant findings related to nonacademic barriers to students’ performance on the HESI E2, nursing educators need to continue to investigate ways to assess and address nonacademic barriers to success. Further study, with a larger sample size, needs to be completed. In addition, a future study that uses the IEBS near the beginning of the nursing education program may provide more relevant results. This study could evaluate correlations between IEBS results to a fundamental nursing course grade or a standardized subject matter final provided by a company such as Elsevier, which is similar to the HESI E2 used in this study. Periodically reassessing students throughout their nursing education could provide multiple opportunities for faculty to offer available resources for the students with nonacademic barriers

Study of the social demands necessary for job adjustment of the adult retardate

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the demands most vital for the adjustment of the retarded person into society. The studies and opinions which were researched dealt mainly with the educable mentally retarded. They were also narrowed to include only the social demands necessary for successful functioning on a job. In many studies and evaluations it was found that the success or failure, the adequacy or inadequacy of the mentally retarded person depended upon social competence, not on intelligence, or a diploma, or even vocational skills. The implications for the education of the mentally retarded should be most obvious

Die funktionelle Analyse des T-box Transkriptionsfaktors Tbx18 in der Somitogenese der Maus

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Rmi1 stimulates decatenation of double Holliday junctions during dissolution by Sgs1-Top3

double Holliday junction (dHJ) is a central intermediate of homologous recombination that can be processed to yield crossover or non-crossover recombination products. To preserve genomic integrity, cells possess mechanisms to avoid crossing over. We show that Saccharomyces cerevisiae Sgs1 and Top3 proteins are sufficient to migrate and disentangle a dHJ to produce exclusively non-crossover recombination products, in a reaction termed "dissolution." We show that Rmi1 stimulates dHJ dissolution at low Sgs1-Top3 protein concentrations, although it has no effect on the initial rate of Holliday junction (HJ) migration. Rmi1 serves to stimulate DNA decatenation, removing the last linkages between the repaired and template DNA molecules. Dissolution of a dHJ is a highly efficient and concerted alternative to nucleolytic resolution that prevents crossing over of chromosomes during recombinational DNA repair in mitotic cells and thereby contributes to genomic integrity

ruvA Mutants that resolve Holliday junctions but do not reverse replication forks

RuvAB and RuvABC complexes catalyze branch migration and resolution of Holliday junctions (HJs) respectively. In addition to their action in the last steps of homologous recombination, they process HJs made by replication fork reversal, a reaction which occurs at inactivated replication forks by the annealing of blocked leading and lagging strand ends. RuvAB was recently proposed to bind replication forks and directly catalyze their conversion into HJs. We report here the isolation and characterization of two separation-of-function ruvA mutants that resolve HJs, based on their capacity to promote conjugational recombination and recombinational repair of UV and mitomycin C lesions, but have lost the capacity to reverse forks. In vivo and in vitro evidence indicate that the ruvA mutations affect DNA binding and the stimulation of RuvB helicase activity. This work shows that RuvA's actions at forks and at HJs can be genetically separated, and that RuvA mutants compromised for fork reversal remain fully capable of homologous recombination

Resegmentation is an ancestral feature of the gnathostome vertebral skeleton.

The vertebral skeleton is a defining feature of vertebrate animals. However, the mode of vertebral segmentation varies considerably between major lineages. In tetrapods, adjacent somite halves recombine to form a single vertebra through the process of 'resegmentation'. In teleost fishes, there is considerable mixing between cells of the anterior and posterior somite halves, without clear resegmentation. To determine whether resegmentation is a tetrapod novelty, or an ancestral feature of jawed vertebrates, we tested the relationship between somites and vertebrae in a cartilaginous fish, the skate (Leucoraja erinacea). Using cell lineage tracing, we show that skate trunk vertebrae arise through tetrapod-like resegmentation, with anterior and posterior halves of each vertebra deriving from adjacent somites. We further show that tail vertebrae also arise through resegmentation, though with a duplication of the number of vertebrae per body segment. These findings resolve axial resegmentation as an ancestral feature of the jawed vertebrate body plan

Role of Androgen Receptor CAG Repeat Polymorphism and X-Inactivation in the Manifestation of Recurrent Spontaneous Abortions in Indian Women

The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of CAG repeat polymorphism and X-chromosome Inactivation (XCI) pattern in Recurrent Spontaneous Abortions among Indian women which has not been hitherto explored. 117 RSA cases and 224 Controls were included in the study. Cases were recruited from two different hospitals - Lakshmi Fertility Clinic, Nellore and Fernandez Maternity Hospital, Hyderabad. Controls were roughly matched for age, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. The CAG repeats of the Androgen Receptor gene were genotyped using a PCR-based assay and were analysed using the GeneMapper software to determine the CAG repeat length. XCI analysis was also carried out to assess the inactivation percentages. RSA cases had a significantly greater frequency of allele sizes in the polymorphic range above 19 repeats (p = 0.006), which is the median value of the controls, and in the biallelic mean range above 21 repeats (p = 0.002). We found no evidence of abnormal incidence of skewed X-inactivation. We conclude that longer CAG repeat lengths are associated with increased odds for RSA with statistical power estimated to be ∼90%