A study by the Graduate School of Education, University of Wollongong, Australia, suggested that students who engage in self-regulated learning are best prepared to meet the academic rigors of a nursing degree program. The study found that to be academically successful in a first-year bachelor of science nursing course, students need strong self-efficacy beliefs to employ a variety of learning strategies and to be convinced of the value and relevance of science to their nursing program.
A study in the Association of Black Nursing Faculty Journal hypothesized that certain non-intellectual factors, such as coping style, number of personal problems, age, marital status and employment status, would be more predictive of academic performance in the first year than would intellectual factors, such as high school grade point average and academic achievement test scores. However, the study found that intellective factors as a group were better predictors than the non-intellective factors.
A Journal of Advanced Nursing study hypothesized that age and entry qualifications influence Northern England students' academic motivation and that this in turn affects their decisions to seek support, which subsequently influences their academic performance. The study found that support-seeking was indeed more predictive of student performance than entry qualifications.