Adult student satisfaction in traditional and accelerated RN-to-BSN programs.

The pressures and complexities that the registered nurse (RN) encounters in today's health care system have motivated many RNs to return to college to obtain their baccalaureate degrees. Competition among institutions of higher education has led faculty to develop and offer more nontraditional delivery models of nursing education. In developing these new models of educational delivery, it is important for faculty to determine what items of education are essential to adult learners. A survey was conducted to assess two delivery formats, traditional and accelerated, for a bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) program for RNs. The goal of the research was to determine what items of education are essential to students and whether one group of students was more satisfied with one delivery system over the other. Items of importance and the concomitant level of satisfaction were surveyed by using an adult students' priorities scale. The survey was distributed to 53 RN students. The results demonstrated that the students in the accelerated format were more satisfied with the institution, program, and services than the students in the traditional format.