Nursing Program Evaluation | Jamestown Community College

What is program evaluation & why is it important?

All nursing programs must evaluate their success in preparing students for the registered nurse licensure exam. Jamestown Community College measures student preparation for practice through graduate surveys, employer surveys, and graduate employment rates. This is called program evaluation. It is the responsibility of the JCC nursing program to communicate these findings to the public. The public may include interested students and their families, consumers, accrediting bodies, potential employers, and the community at large.

Program evaluation allows faculty to objectively measure the strengths and weaknesses to ultimately maintain and improve the quality of the program. This information can also be used by the public before applying to the program, hiring our graduates, or investing resources.

If you have questions about any of the data found on the site, call 716.338.1170 or email the Nursing department faculty.

Evaluation measures

The National Council for State Boards of Nursing is charged with developing the national examination for registered nurse licensure. Students take the examination following graduation from a nursing pre-licensure program. Students graduating from associate’s, diploma, and bachelor’s degree nursing programs take the same national licensure exam. This examination tests entry level nursing competence and indicates that students who pass have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to be licensed as a registered nurse. These results are correlated to the quality of education that students receive. A high passage rate is one indication of a good program.

The NCLEX-RN pass rate documents are for first time examination takers. Students who do not pass the examination the first time, often pass the second time. The JCC nursing program’s first time pass rate on the NCLEX-RN has been consistently above the New York state and national average first time pass rate for the last three years.

Pass rate of NCLEX-RN exam for JCC graduates on the first attempts of the exam taken within a year of graduation:

Class of 2019: 94%
Class of 2020: 86%
Class of 2021: 89%

Evaluating how graduates rate their knowledge, skills, and abilities to enter practice as a registered nurse is another important measure of program quality. Graduates are surveyed six to twelve months following graduation utilizing the eight program outcomes in addition to other qualitative questions. The rating scale is on a scale of 5: highly satisfied to 1: highly unsatisfied. The JCC nursing program’s satisfaction rate on the graduate survey indicates students rated the program between satisfied and highly satisfied for the past three years.

Nursing graduate program satisfaction ratings:

Class of 2016: 4.72
Class of 2017: 4.37
Class of 2018: 4.35

*Data is not representative of all graduates.

Evaluating how employers rate graduates knowledge, skills, and abilities to enter practice is important. The level of employer satisfaction is another quality measure of the program’s ability to educate graduates for entry level nurse practice. Employers are surveyed six to twelve months following graduation utilizing the same eight program outcomes as the graduate survey. The rating scale on the table below is on a scale of 5: highly satisfied to 1: highly unsatisfied. The JCC nursing program’s satisfaction rate on the employer survey indicates employers rated the program between satisfied and highly satisfied for the past three years.

Nursing employer program satisfaction ratings:

Class of 2016: 4.0
Class of 2017: 4.14
Class of 2018: 4.27

*Data is not representative of all graduate employers.

This data indicates how many graduates completed the nursing program in a maximum of three years from the time of admission to the nursing program (150% of graduation rate). Students leave the nursing program for various reasons (i.e., life event, poor grades, and/or an alternate career path).

Three-year graduation rate in nursing for students in Foundation of Nursing:

F16 as of F19 is 77%
F17 as of F20 is 60%
F18 as of F21 is 58%

Following graduation, the program tracks students to see how many successfully gain employment as a registered nurse. Data is collected via survey six to twelve months after graduation. Data indicates JCC nursing program graduates are highly employable.

Nursing graduate survey employment rates:

Class of 2019: 91%
Class of 2020: 92%
Class of 2021: 94%