Edna L. York

Abstract

The Purpose and Contributions of the Investigation:

The purpose of the study was to discover if the examination used in selection of students for the School of Nursing at the Giffard Memorial Hospital in Nuzvid, South India, was helpful in selecting those who would be successful in the course of study and efficient in eliminating those who would not be successful. When it was revealed that the test was not effective in fulfilling its purpose, further study was done to determine the reasons.

Procedure Used in the Investigation:

In order to become acquainted with the problems and progress of the use of selection tests in India, correspondence was carried on with several of the psychology departments of the major universities in India and with some of the rather newly established guidance bureaus in the country.

The data used in this study was derived from (1) the scores on 115 examination papers, (2) the scores for the class of 1958 on the Junior Board Examination, (3) information from the individual student files in the School of Nursing, and (4) grades recorded in the grade book of the School of Nursing.

The reliability of the test as determined by the split-half Spearman-Brown Prophecy formula was found to be .88. The rest was validated against the Junior Board Examination results for sixteen students admitted in July, 1955. The Pearson coefficient of correlation was found to be .185 ± .3. In doing the item analysis, the number of wrong answers among the 27 percent who earned the highest scores was subtracted from the number of wrong answers among the 27 percent who earned the lowest scores to find the discriminating value. The numbers wrong from both groups were added together to find the difficulty value. This analysis revealed that thirty-one out of the seventy items on the test are not sufficiently discriminating to be of value.

Conclusions:

The findings of this analysis indicate that the test was of little value in predicting the degree of success or failure for the small group of twenty-one students who were included in the study. The item analysis seems to indicate that faulty construction or selection of items is probably partly responsible for the low reliability and validity of the test. The most important conclusion is that until a more reliable and valid test is available, little confidence can be placed on the results obtained by the use of this selection test as a guide in choosing those most likely to succeed. Even when a valid and reliable test is available, a decision so important to the individual should be made carefully, taking all obtainable information about the candidate into consideration.

LLU Discipline

Nursing

Department

Nursing

School

Graduate Studies

First Advisor

Anne Martin

Second Advisor

R. Maureen Maxwell

Third Advisor

Robert W. Woods

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Degree Level

M.S.

Year Degree Awarded

1958

Date (Title Page)

6-1958

Language

English

Library of Congress/MESH Subject Headings

Students, Nursing; Schools, Nursing -- India

Type

Thesis

Page Count

iii; 81

Digital Format

PDF

Digital Publisher

Loma Linda University Libraries

Usage Rights

This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has granted Loma Linda University a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other copyrights.

Collection

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Collection Website

http://scholarsrepository.llu.edu/etd/

Repository

Loma Linda University. Del E. Webb Memorial Library. University Archives

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