Correlation between teacher - student interposonal relationships and academic achievement of nursing students in Nepal

Abstract

His Majesty’s Government of Nepal has adopted a national policy for attainment of “Health for all by the year 2000”. Nursing Education has a responsibility to product qualified and competent nurse to achieve that goal. According to reviewed literature, most student nurses experience stress and anxiety during their training period. Lack of relationship between teacher-student results in the loss of student’s intellectual and personal development. One of the big problem in Nursing Education is high failure rate in the institute final examination. The failure rate reported in 1990 was 28%. The main objective of this study was to determine the level of interpersonal relationship related to the student’s academic achievement. A descriptive correlation research design was conducted in this study. The sample consisted of 234 nursing students in 1991 from nursing campuses. The main component of relationships were trust, support system, open communication, effective classroom teaching, and characteristics of clinical teacher. The main instruments of this study were self-administered questionnaires and the student’s academic record. The result showed that the perceived average level of relationship between teacher and student in each component was satisfactory. The result of a one way ANOVA for the average level of relationship perceived by all student in the seven campuses were significantly different P-value (0.001). The result of the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficients used to predict the correlation between component of relationship and academic achievement was not significant. From the study it was recommended that the nursing campuses should strengthen the teacher-student relationship to enchance students’ academic achievement. Further study is also recommended to Utilize other variables to make valid and reliable result.