Undergraduate nursing student satisfaction with the nursing program at a university campus in Namibia

Abstract

Background: Student satisfaction is increasingly becoming a policy driver for evaluating the quality of education and the accreditation of academic programmes. Although student satisfaction is viewed as a yardstick of academic success, it remains understudied in Namibia. Objective: To determine undergraduate students’ satisfaction with the nursing programme at a university campus in Namibia. Methods and materials: A cross-sectional descriptive survey, with use of a non-proportional quota sampling strategy was used to recruit 147 undergraduate nursing students. Data were analysed using SPSSv27, using mean score and logistic regression as inferential statistics to predict the relationship between variables. Results: The study found a mean satisfaction of 3.27 ± 0.91 among the 147 respondents. The majority of the respondents (70.6%) were generally satisfied, whereas 29.4% were dissatisfied with the nursing programme. The frequent areas of satisfaction were in-class teaching (90.5%), simulation-based teaching (76.9%) and staff conduct (62.6%), whereas dissatisfaction was associated with access to school services (52.4%). A significant prevalence of satisfaction was found among the second and third year students (55.8%, 60.9%, p = 0.00). The predictors for dissatisfaction were being male vs. female (54.1% vs 45.3%) and having retired parents (70.5%, p < 0.05). Conclusion: The study identified important areas of dissatisfaction in a nursing programme. A high level of dissatisfaction was linked to a lack of access to the building’s emergency exit plans (62.5%) and teaching facilities, i.e., the computer and clinical laboratories (55.8%). It is vital for nursing training schools to take cognisance of these areas, toward optimising quality nursing education.

Keywords

• Undergraduate
• Nursing students
• Satisfaction
• Academic services