Providing direct care, quantified by clinical hour reporting, is an integral component of nursing programs. Despite calls for research, current literature provides little evidence for best practices related to quantity of clinical practice hours. Licensure exams, a common means to measure student mastery of essential components in nursing, may provide such evidence.

The study aims to investigate a potential relationship between licensure exam performance and time in clinical hours.

The researchers examined the relationship between NCLEX® performance and clinical hours in 38 baccalaureate programs over a four year period.

The correlation study indicated a very weak negative correlation between the number of clinical hours completed and NCLEX performance. The data did not demonstrate a statistically significant relationship, r(38) = −0.051, p = 0.760.

Clinical hours may be valuable for reasons that are not measurable. However, the absence of data supporting a particular time commitment to clinical hours may ground questions regarding patterns of resource investments in nursing education. The current measurable evidence fails to validate particular time commitments in clinical hours.