DIFFERENCES IN COMPETENCIES BETWEEN NURSES PREPARED AT ASSOCIATE DEGREE LEVEL VS BACCALAURATE LEVEL.
The development in research and advancement in technology demands highly qualified individuals in many professions especially in the health care industry There are three ways to become an RN such as a nursing diploma program offered by hospitals. 2 -year associate degree usually offered at community colleges and a 4 year baccalaureate in nursing offered at colleges and universities. After World war II, demand for nurses grew dramatically in United States to meet the severity of the shortage. The faculty was forced to develop new entry level nursing program to prepare nurse technicians in a two year associate degree. (Creasia, 2011). In this paper, we are going to discuss the differences in competencies between a nurse who holds an associate degree versus a baccalaureate degree.

Education differences between associate and baccalaureate degree nursing
In addition to all the course work taught in associate degree nursing, BSN nurses are taught more "in depth treatment of physical and social sciences, nursing, research, public health, community health, nursing management and humanities" (Rosseter , 2013). These additional courses make a BSN nurse to grow in their profession, and to better understand cultural, political ,economic and social issues that affect patient and influence healthcare.
So these different level graduate nurses perform from the same platform, so the question is whose performance is leading to better outcome? All these different graduate level nurses appear for the NCLEX exam, which tests the minimum technical competency for safe entry into basic nursing practice but does not test differences between graduates of different programs nor their level of performance.
Different researches link higher level of nursing education