Does 1 + 1 still equal 2? A study of the mathematic competencies of associate degree nursing students.

Many associate degree nursing students lack basic computational mathematic ability. When a computational mathematics test was administered to more than 850 associate degree nursing students nationwide, the results were amazingly consistent. The mean student score on the Computational Arithmetic Test was 75%. The findings showed that students were mathematically underprepared, particularly in skills involving fractions, decimals, and percents, the mathematic skills necessary for medication calculation. The author also surveyed associate degree nursing faculty (n = 118) from the same schools of nursing as to how successful they felt their students would be on a computational mathematics test. The average faculty expected student performance was 88%.