Almost have fail a test...

Nursing Students General Students

Published

Specializes in Pediatrics, High-Risk L&D, Antepartum, L.

I most recent test comes back and out of about 38 students there were 11 failures and 3 As (that includes A-). The rest were mainly C and then some B. I thankfully did not fail. There is one guy who usually gets a 96-98 who got an 80. Another student who is usually in the A range got a 78.

Now usually the class average on tests is 84-85%. The class average on this test was 74%.

There are some that think this is a result of bad teaching or just a bad test.

I'm curious to see what other people think about this type of thing. Is it reasonable to have so many people fail? Is it reasonable to point the finger at the instructors and say they did something wrong?

Now something to note...they gave us this test the weekend after clinicals. The class coordinator commented the week before the test that they were going over it and she thought "wow that's really hard". There was a week that we didn't have class due to snow. The test was either pushed back by 1 class day or not at all...I can't remember. So basically we crammed the missed time into a a much smaller amount of time, didn't have a lot of time after the instruction was done before taking the test and the test was right after clinical weekend. Some of this may or may not matter but they could so there are the details.

Thoughts?

Specializes in Med/Surg <1; Epic Certified <1.

Hmmmmmmm...we have clinicals EVERY week, checkouts sprinkled in between, and lecture that often ends on Friday and is included on Monday's test. We're not feeling the love....we deal....and I don't think we have it as bad as some...it often feels like I'm in the middle of an arcade game and the main target -- ping! ping! ping!! It just seems to never end and there are days (like today) where my brain feels about ready to bust....

But for some strange reason, I'll go show up again on Monday for more...I just figured that's the way nursing school was...much like real life where you can't tell the pts that you've been busy and really haven't had time to figure out what their needs are....

Specializes in Cardiac Care.

But 3 people got A's, which means getting an A was possible. The fact that people who normally got A's and didn't this time would seem to be a non-issue or relevant only to their preparation. And I don't see that pointing the finger at the instructors and saying that they did something wrong is warranted either, because, as you stated, people did get A's.

Specializes in Home Health Care.

It's normal in my program. We had one test where 68% was the class average! Our instructors basically told us, we have the material, we are to learn it on our own and if we have any questions , bring it to class. They are only there to facilitate our learning. It is hard when you are teaching yourself.....I've only got about 9 more weeks of test to go!

Specializes in Pediatrics, High-Risk L&D, Antepartum, L.

One of the reasons I ask this is because one student openly said to an instructor that this was a result of "bad teaching". When she said this I sank a little in my seat and turned because I wanted NO parts of that.

I do think that snow causing classes to be canceled and cramming everything in was part of the reason and combine that after a clinical weekend. Basically on our clinical weekends there is no time to study. We spend a few hours (at minimum) on Friday night for prep. On Saturday night we have more paperwork that could take MANY hours and then back to clinicals on Sunday. They do generally try to do tests the Tuesday after a non clinical weekend. Our clinicals are only on the weekends. We do have labs during the week and we will go on the floor during the week this semester but just once.

It was a hard test. The instructor running the course admitted it was hard and it was clear they didn't mean for it to be this hard...it just happened to be that way.

I personally am disappointed but not mad. There are mad students. There are at least 2 that are VERY mad. There are some that just aren't happy. I personally just think it's a shame to see so many fail when there were circumstances beyond our control that messed up the schedule and there's no doubt that played into it.

I do not think it was bad teaching.

I'm just curious to see what people thought of this happening especially given the circumstances that came up. I feel like those who are mad are over reacting...and I know at least 1 that is mad did pass. The other student may have failed...I know this semester has been hard on her.

Specializes in Med/Surg, ICU, ER, Peds ER-CPEN.

I can understand that crammed material can make it difficult, but it isn't impossible, for example we recieved our reading assigment in 5 different chapters over 2 books, Phipp's Med/Surg & Wong's Peds Weds afternoon via email, we had lecture over the material we read yesterday and today from 8-12 and the exam covering this material is Tuesday, plus toss in a few med pass check offs where you are given X # of patients, you observe their med pass for the day,copy & black out their MAR (nursing home so it's a doozy lol) and go become best buds with your Davis' Drug guide to make a card for every med to turn in when you go back to perform the med pass, if you're lucky you go back a few days later to do it, I'm not that lucky mine are back to back, which means I observe 6-12, take said exam at 1 instead of 8am, then miss chem lecture the next day which sucks because I have a Chem exam next time that class meets lol so yeah stuff get's crammed rushed and thrown at you from a million angles but it's all in how you catch it and what with you do with it, this is just the begining and it only gets harder, what is your school's definition of pass/fail? Ours is less than 80% is failure

Specializes in Pediatrics, High-Risk L&D, Antepartum, L.
of patients, you observe their med pass for the day,copy & black out their MAR (nursing home so it's a doozy lol) and go become best buds with your Davis' Drug guide to make a card for every med to turn in when you go back to perform the med pass, if you're lucky you go

what is your school's definition of pass/fail? Ours is less than 80% is failure

Can I just tell you that we are using a PDA with Davis loaded on it and it's so much easier. We just bookmark all the drugs we need for the day or weekend instead of doing cards...saves SO much time.

Our fail is 70% or below. We do have a high NCLEX pass rate though. I know some schools have much harder pass rate but I don't really pay much attention to them because each school's curriculum can really vary...meaning some would be hurting if the pass was 80% and up just because they for some reason are just a harder program. If the next few tests aren't better we are going to find a lot of people don't come back in the summer...and that just makes me sad.

Specializes in Med/Surg, ICU, ER, Peds ER-CPEN.
Can I just tell you that we are using a PDA with Davis loaded on it and it's so much easier. We just bookmark all the drugs we need for the day or weekend instead of doing cards...saves SO much time.

We have PDA's with Davis & Tabers and all kinds of other stuff I haven't even played with yet too but we have to turn in notecards either typed or handwritten (ok copy & paste but how do you really learn doing it that way? I'm old fashioned so mine will be written as that's the best way for me personally to retain the informat) to turn in 15 mins before our med pass check off starts

Specializes in Med/Surg <1; Epic Certified <1.
Can I just tell you that we are using a PDA with Davis loaded on it and it's so much easier. We just bookmark all the drugs we need for the day or weekend instead of doing cards...saves SO much time.

Our fail is 70% or below. We do have a high NCLEX pass rate though. I know some schools have much harder pass rate but I don't really pay much attention to them because each school's curriculum can really vary...meaning some would be hurting if the pass was 80% and up just because they for some reason are just a harder program. If the next few tests aren't better we are going to find a lot of people don't come back in the summer...and that just makes me sad.

We are required to write ours out too...either on a drug card or in the care plan...EVERY med whether we will be passing it or not....EVERY week...if we use a PC we can do them on the PC and then cut and paste, but it must be IN the document for each week's pt.....and several of the clinical groups are not allowed to refer to anything when they come to get their meds....it must be committed to memory....

Specializes in Pediatrics, High-Risk L&D, Antepartum, L.
We are required to write ours out too...either on a drug card or in the care plan...EVERY med whether we will be passing it or not....EVERY week...if we use a PC we can do them on the PC and then cut and paste, but it must be IN the document for each week's pt.....and several of the clinical groups are not allowed to refer to anything when they come to get their meds....it must be committed to memory....

Oh we still better know everything but writing it all out is now optional. The cards are available. I found writing it all out did nothing for me. It became wasted time and for me it didn't help...just made it harder because instead of really getting things in my brain I just spent time mindlessly copying stuff. I think they realize that for some people the drug cards do not help...and they can tell if we know it buy drilling us on the floor or in conference.

+ Add a Comment