Academic success in undergraduate nursing education: An integrative review

The aim of this review was to synthesize and appraise the available literature regarding academic success in undergraduate nursing education. We used Whittemore and Knafl's five-stage framework for integrative reviews. Toronto and Remington's step-by-step guide to integrative reviews provided practical guidance in the review process. A search was employed to retrieve relevant scholarly, peer-reviewed, English-language articles published between 2003 and 2023 using the databases APA PsycINFO, CINAHL, ERIC, Education Research Complete, and MEDLINE. The initial search located 2599 articles. After duplicate screening at title and abstract and full text levels using predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria, 40 articles were selected for inclusion. All included articles were critically appraised using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool for empirical studies and the Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal tools for the reviews and the theoretical papers. A review and synthesis of the articles revealed preadmission factors can impact academic success in undergraduate nursing education. However, most authors used narrow measures of success such as on-time graduation and exam performance. In most articles performance in the clinical environment was not considered measured as part of academic success. Few empirical studies used a theoretical framework, and the overall methodological quality of the included articles was mixed. Our findings suggest a gap in the literature regarding more inclusive approaches to measuring academic success in undergraduate nursing education. The dearth of qualitative studies and limited attention to how academic success is measured in the clinical learning environment suggest future research should focus on exploring student nurses' perceptions of success. Furthermore, researchers examining this topic are encouraged to utilize suitable theoretical frameworks to guide empirical studies. •Nursing programs are experiencing increased rates of student failure and student attrition.•Nursing students' academic success is a key facet to addressing the nursing shortage.•Narrow measures are used to assess nursing students' academic success.•More inclusive approaches to measuring and supporting academic success in undergraduate nursing education are needed.