Questionable necessity effects on patient safety competency among nursing students: Re-examining Yang et al. (2027)
Abstract
Using Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA), Yang et al. concluded that adequate levels of organizational support, patient safety culture, adverse event risk perception, professional identity, and self-efficacy constitute necessary prerequisites for achieving high patient safety competency among master's-level nursing students. However, NCA-derived necessity effects may arise solely from associations between variables rather than reflecting genuine necessity relationships. In the present reanalysis, we evaluated whether the necessity effects reported by Yang et al. exceeded expected levels attributable to correlation alone. All reported effects were found to fall within or below estimated ranges of spuriousness, indicating that they were not stronger than would be anticipated in the absence of true necessity. Accordingly, the evidence presented by Yang et al. does not provide robust support for the claimed necessity relationships. We recommend that researchers employing NCA routinely assess ranges of spuriousness and only interpret necessity effects as substantive when they exceed these benchmarks.
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BibTeX
@misc{sorjonen2026questionable,
title = {{Questionable necessity effects on patient safety competency among nursing students: Re-examining Yang et al. (2027)}},
author = {Kimmo Sorjonen and Bo Melin and Marika Melin},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/h4ncm_v1},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/h4ncm_v1/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Questionable necessity effects on patient safety competency among nursing students: Re-examining Yang et al. (2027)
AU - Kimmo Sorjonen
AU - Bo Melin
AU - Marika Melin
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/12
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/h4ncm_v1
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/h4ncm_v1/
AB - Using Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA), Yang et al. concluded that adequate levels of organizational support, patient safety culture, adverse event risk perception, professional identity, and self-efficacy constitute necessary prerequisites for achieving high patient safety competency among master's-level nursing students. However, NCA-derived necessity effects may arise solely from associations between variables rather than reflecting genuine necessity relationships. In the present reanalysis, we evaluated whether the necessity effects reported by Yang et al. exceeded expected levels attributable to correlation alone. All reported effects were found to fall within or below estimated ranges of spuriousness, indicating that they were not stronger than would be anticipated in the absence of true necessity. Accordingly, the evidence presented by Yang et al. does not provide robust support for the claimed necessity relationships. We recommend that researchers employing NCA routinely assess ranges of spuriousness and only interpret necessity effects as substantive when they exceed these benchmarks.
ER -