[RN34TX]

Originally Posted by Jolie

By the university's logic, a failing senior student who passes HESI or ATI ought to be able to sit for NCLEX.

So very true.

When I lived in Dallas, the teaching hospital I worked for determined a new grad nurse's career path by that darn HESI exam.

If they scored too low on it, they could not qualify for our ICU internships, but were more than welcome to enter the Med/Surg internships.

Any experienced RN/LPN/LVN can see where I'm going with that one.

You're too dumb for ICU but smart enough to work med/surg as an RN/LPN?? Hello??

Personally, I believe that if we need to keep coming up with standardized exams then the NCLEX becomes invalidated.

It's sad to see people like Dr. Dorothy Del Bueno (of PBDS) profit off of such ideology.

The state board exam and nursing education isn't good enough.

My personal testing system will reveal bad nurses for the right price and I will deam who is incompetent based on my own little scenaro's on a video and how nurses answer the questions.....

[WoosahRN]

Maybe we should make the instructors take these tests every year to keep their jobs? Bet they would be fighting mad too.

[Ex130Load]

Jolie,

Sometimes there isn't a problem until there is a problem. During my grad year, I think my school had 100+ grads. Statistically, 94% or so, for argumentative purposes, passed NCLEX first time out. I say argumentative because I don't know exactly how many passed in my peer group, but the numbers have been holding consistent for several years. According to the same assistant dean, I think she said all passed HESI in the preceeding year by the second try. So, no one got a degree and was ineligible to sit for NCLEX. The academic process had very effectively removed all weaker students who could have been in that boat. We lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 45% of all students starting from day-one Foundations/Fundementals, etc. I partially agree with you that it would be a waste to go the whole distance, graduate, and remain ineligible for NCLEX. It'd be a definite heart breaker.

However all would not be lost if a person looks outside of nursing. A nursing degree remains valuable for those who know at what they are looking. A BSN can get you into the FBI, military, and CIA. It can help you move up through the ranks in the Post Office. A host of other governmental agencies want a four-year degree. People in-the-know realize any graduate from any nursing school worth its salt has at least moderate problem-solving skills, time management skills, supervisory skills, interpersonal skills, personal discipline, attention to detail, a more than a few efficient gray cells. All would not be lost, maybe within nursing, but not necessarily everywhere else. Having been around the block a bit, I know several people who would gladly re-hire me again with raises. They would want me to move up or offer positions in management/supervision especially because of my academic background/degree; a former boss said so personally the last time I spoke with her.

Some observations of which peers and former peers share.

Please excuse typos, spelling errors, etc. as I am working from a slow, antiquated, barely functioning PC.

[RN34TX]

Originally Posted by HBettis

Maybe we should make the instructors take these tests every year to keep their jobs? Bet they would be fighting mad too.

So true.
If instructors had to take proficiency exams to prove their worth.........well the shoe would be on the other foot.

HESI for nursing instructors?

Pass or lose your job?

The same fate you give nursing students?

I wonder how that would go over.....

[BSNDec06]

I agree with Jolie that the ATI or HESI should not be used to weed students out who are about to graduate.

If these students had B or B+ averages and could not pass the ATI, then there is something wrong with their program. That school might need to come up with a plan to combat grade inflation (this is a problem in colleges across the country, not just nursing programs).

At my school, we were required to have a 60% to pass the ATI. If not, students would receive letters in the mail and be required to do remediation of some sort. We were all encouraged to take a hard look at our weak areas and make plans to improve upon them.

After we took the HESI last semester, we were required to submit a plan in writing to our clinical instructor to correct our deficiencies by the end of the semester. If we did not do this, we would not be able to pass that level.

I think that the solution to this problem is twofold. First, students should be weeded out on the front end. This means tougher entrance requirements instead of just accepting people in the order they apply and wait-listing the others. The second solution is to make the courses harder, so that students are dropped from the program after one or two semesters instead of later in the program.

My school has become much more selective in its admission policies over the past few years, and I believe that this more than changes in curriculum has helped them to improve their NCLEX pass rate.

[nursemi]

OH I GET IT NOW!!!!!

The colleges are saying they don't want to send out incompetent nurses and that is why they must pass the ATI/Hesi Exit Exams- allowing the students only two or three chances to be successful. Right? If you don't pass these exams you don't get your degree. BYE BYE and who cares about you?

Well all those License Professional Registered Nurses out there who took NCLEX-RN exam for their second or more time YOU NEED TO SEND your nursing license back because these colleges are saying you are incompetent!!!!

Come on, this is ALL about VANITY.

Even the State Board allows you to take NCLEX as many times as you can until successfu for up to three years. Whose fault is it when you successfully completed the nursing program and your instructors remediation exams but 90% failed HESI and are no longer allowed to take HESI. Since we are not allowed to take HESI again, we are also not allowed to get our nursing degrees and also not allowed to take NCLEX. NOTHING.
Testing is great, we want to be tested not punished.
ATI and HESI IS A DIAGNOSTIC COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT TOOL. Do you remember what diagnostic means???? Maybe some people forgot. It means
"TO DETERMINE THE CAUSE" as we are in the medical field..... once we determined the cause do we forget maybe even punish the client or do we teach and work with the client?? Me, I would rather teach my client so he understands what possibly may have contributed "to the cause"
I guess since I didn't pass HESI I must be incompetent.

[nursemi]

Originally Posted by wjf00

Why not eliminate testing altogether. A little litigation should clear up all those ugly hurdles.

Who is asking to eliminate the testing? I did not read that anywhere. Does that mean since you misunderstood the material that I should fail you? Or would you want me to correct and teach you so you don't make the same mistake? How about I teach you what the objective is..... Use the exams according to its purpose - DIAGNOSTIC!

[morte]

i graduated long before any of this 'testing' frenzy.....and i think those who have mentioned it is a vanity thing for the schools are prob correct. If they can't attain a 75% pass rate...then they need to revamp their program. Also i would have a BIG problem taking a test that wasnt recorded in some manner, so that it could be challenged....(took the boards when it was two days, paper and pencil).....and persuant to the poster who said the lpn version had at least two wrong answers....this could have been the dif between pass and fail...... OT but on the subject of testing....i knew a teacher who took a test to maintain his lic to teach.....failed and when asked what he failed....was told he got all the questions on a partcular subject wrong.......HE DIDNT HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ON THAT MATERIAL ON HIS EXAM!........ i recently took ceu's on line.....at least one questions "correct" answer, was something i would never do!....again, could have been the dif between pass/fail

[Justhere]

We had to take the ATI to be allowed to graduate and sit for boards. We had to make a 70 or better on the test. Then they turned around and sprung Hesi on us for our final exam. So we got a double wammy.

[Sheri257]

Sorry but, I don't think the ATI (or HESI) is all that unfair ... at least the way my school did it. It's like anything else in nursing school .... you can't expect the instructors to spoon feed all of the material. Whether it's fair or not ... that's not going happen. You've got to take the initiative and prepare for the exam as much as you can on your own.

We were informed about having to take the ATI months ago, and I'm sure the students in article knew about it well in advance also.

So, what me and some of my classmates did was share the cost of buying the practice exams (which was about $120) so we could try prepare, get used to the testing style and, also, the type of content they were looking for. From what I understand, you can buy HESI practice exams also.

For those of us who did the practice exams, I do think it helped at least to some extent. Most of the class did ok on the exam.

We can go on and on about unfair these tests are but ... the fact is (at least in most cases) we did have fair warning and were able to do something about it if we wanted to. The practice exams didn't help as much as we would have liked but, still, it did help.

Also ... I think it's important to realize a key factor in all of this. A lot of times students will say ... that test was unfair because we didn't have that material in school. I have good grades overall so, how could I fail?

Well, a lot of times, we did get the material but some of it was taught way back in first semester and/or was mentioned in some obscure part of the reading years ago, and people have already forgotten about it because there's so much material to remember overall.

There's a big difference between taking an exam on material right after it's been taught and still fresh in your mind, versus taking an exam that covers everything for years going back to pre-reqs. It's definitely a lot tougher but, that's just the way it is.

It's like anything else, you've got to constantly refresh yourself and study because it is very easy to forget the overwhelming volume of material. But, that's not necessarily the school's fault. It's just the fact of life of what has to be done to pass the NCLEX.