Comparing Police Nursing Students’ Numeric Skills

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the level of numerical skills among police nursing students and compare it between difference 4 years of study. The participants were 273 police nursing students and recruited by using purposive selection technique. Instrument used for data collection was the test of numerical skills. Its content validity was tested by three experts and reported as 1.00. It was tried out this instrument with forty nursing students who had similar characteristics with the study’s participants. Its reliability was tested using the KR-20 and found as .70. The mean item difficulty was .643 and mean discrimination index was .335. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA. Post hoc test was utilized to compare the mean differences among each pair by Scheffe’s method.

The results showed that police nursing students had low level scores of numerical skills (M = 35.52, SD = 9.03). Third year nursing students had the highest average of numeric skills scores (M = 40.05, SD. = 7.40), followed by the fourth year, second year, and first year nursing students respectively. The result about comparing the mean score of the overall numerical skills and three dimensions with police nursing students on the 4-year course, there were differences of (F = 31.476, 4.205, 16.986 and 24.178, respectively). Second year nursing students had significantly lower mean score of the overall numerical skills than third year nursing students. Each dimension of numerical skills, significantly difference in mean score of mathematical basic skill, it was found mean difference in the third year and fourth year nursing students (Mean Difference = .690, p < .05). However, First year students had the mean score of simple nursing calculation skill and complex nursing calculation skill significantly lower than third-, fourth- and second-year nursing students, respectively (p< .05).