ABSTRACTA survey of all nurse‐midwifery programs in operation during 1987 was designed to answer the questions: (1) to what extent were elements of mastery learning being implemented in nurse‐midwifery programs, and (2) were there patterns of implementation associated with particular organizational characteristics of the programs. Mastery learning was introduced in nurse‐midwifery education in 1972; in this study elements of mastery learning were found to be widely implemented in both mastery and non‐mastery learning programs. Data about organizational characteristics of the programs revealed them to be homogeneous in several respects. There were no important differences in implementation of elements of mastery learning associated with the organizational characteristics