Require statistics for BSN?

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I'm working on a curriculum for BSN students. One of the prerequisites to the nursing program is statistics. My question is, "Is undergraduate statistics essential as a prerequisite for nursing Grad school, or would a course in Research Methods be acceptable?" The students will still take a specific Nursing Research course. My concern is that our stats course is almost all math, with little content relating to research. The Research Methods course I have in mind would be more useful as a foundation for Nursing Research. Any advice welcome.

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I would recommend both, as it will also prepare them if they wish to attend other schools. Stats is required at almost every nursing school in the country as a base requirement. There's no harm in requiring both!

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Thanks! (The problem is that our state limits the number of credits for a BS, and we are about 7 credits over at this time.) We'll probably stick with the straight Stats course.

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Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

I found the stats course in my BSN program to be very helpful. It was related strictly to nursing and we had to learn how to "translate" research papers we found. However, research methods was another course that was required, so there you go. Both were extremely beneficial for students going to grad school (and both were required)

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Specializes in Adult and Pediatric Vascular Access, Paramedic.

My R.N.-BSN program requires both since you need statistics to get through research in nursing!

Annie

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