Background: Students entering nursing schools are encountering difficulties with completing the nursing program. This is a quality patient care concern, as this problem can result in a shortage of nurses to meet the demands of a constantly changing population. The competitiveness and success of nursing schools requires instructors from diverse backgrounds, instructors who possess a nuturing behavior, and instructors knowledgeable of the Evidence-Based Process and there is a slow process to gain these. The fore stated concern is the foundation for this capstone project. Experience in higher education demonstrates that some nursing students have difficulty succeeding in nursing school due to lack of continuity in the nursing curriculum. EBP Framework: The Model for Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) and Curriculum Changes served as the framework for this project. Methods: The purpose of this project is to examine factors that contribute to why nursing students are unsuccesful in an associate degree nursing curriculum. Nationally, normed nursing knowledge testing in the form of core courses, unit examinations, and comprehensive examinations used at the private for-profit college was used to assess the nursing students’ knowledge over the course of their two year program. Results were compared using descriptive statistics. Results: Analysis of the data provided by the results of the ATI comprehensive examinations and NCLEX examinations revealed a need to revise the nursing curriculum to keep up with the present century research and include EBP and continuity in the nursing curriculum. The results are documented in Appendices A and B, the higher pass rates were the results of continuity in the curriculum. Conclusion: Implementing the change in the private for-profit college might prepare the Associate of Science Degree nursing students successfully for the workforce. For this reason integrating continuity and EBP into the nursing curriculum are important aspects of the prevention of nursing students’ unsuccessful experience in nursing school.
