What happens when the majority fails?

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Just out of curiosity, I'm wondering what other schools have done when they have had a large majority of the class fail an exam?

We have around 80 in our second yr adn class and our first exam (psych) was brutal. I've heard only 15 people passed (but that's just rumors), these are smart people who worked really hard. I know the faculty and students are panicky. (this is a great school with a great reputation/pass rate) The college is also giving a generic "study skills" class...

This was last week, we have a test review where we have to write why we missed each question coming up next week.

Just made me think what could happen?

Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

Ad GrnTea so eloquently explained.... there are accepted procedures for analyzing test items. Some items are more 'difficult' than others. These are items that lower achievers are much less likely to answer correctly. This does not make them 'bad' questions. As a matter of fact, according to item response theory, ( http://echo.edres.org:8080/irt/ ) these items are the best ones.

The practice of judging the value/worth of a test item by how many students managed to answer it correctly is a violation of good educational practice.

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The practice of judging the value/worth of a test item by how many students managed to answer it correctly is a violation of good educational practice.

If those questions came from a question bank, sure. But what about those professors who write their own questions? I have seen quite a few really poorly worded questions. Misspellings and all. Our last test had one that was completely wrong. I looked it up in our book after the test and it was totally incorrect, but they insisted that the entire class read it wrong. Uh, no.

I wish we had test bank questions.

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Specializes in Forensic Psych.
If those questions came from a question bank sure. But what about those professors who write their own questions? I have seen quite a few really poorly worded questions. Misspellings and all. Our last test had one that was completely wrong. I looked it up in our book after the test and it was totally incorrect, but they insisted that the entire class read it wrong. Uh, no. I wish we had test bank questions.[/quote']

My program allows us to contest questions, then they're usually thrown out or more than one answer is is accepted if we make a valid case.

That's really the only way our grades are changed. One, maybe two questions overall have been thrown out because they were missed by a large percentage, but it still came back to WHO missed the questions. If a good number the A students missed it as well, then it was up for axing

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My program allows us to contest questions, then they're usually thrown out or more than one answer is is accepted if we make a valid case.

That's really the only way our grades are changed. One, maybe two questions overall have been thrown out because they were missed by a large percentage, but it still came back to WHO missed the questions. If a good number the A students missed it as well, then it was up for axing

That's how our professors are this semester. I don't contest many questions because when I miss them, it's usually because I honestly didn't know it. There are people in our class who contest every one they get wrong. That one they messed up last test, I for sure wrote a nice note about on the tests cover page. ;) They ended up giving it back, even though they still insisted it wasn't worded wrong.

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We just had an incident where over half of the students missed several questions on our last quiz. At our school, if 50% or more miss a question it is reviewed by all of that levels instructors. They will check to see why it was missed: was it a bad question, did we cover the material in class, or did we all just have a massive collective brain fart? The decision will then be made of weather the questions will be kept, tossed or if other answers could be accepted.

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A question for FDW630, since you are in the same school as me. I wanted to find out your schedule now that your in the program, including your study time. It's been so difficult with the kids, coordinating a sitter and I'm so close. I'm stressing, because I odnt know how parents with children do it.

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We just had an incident where over half of the students missed several questions on our last quiz. At our school, if 50% or more miss a question it is reviewed by all of that levels instructors. They will check to see why it was missed: was it a bad question, did we cover the material in class, or did we all just have a massive collective brain fart? The decision will then be made of weather the questions will be kept, tossed or if other answers could be accepted.

This is pretty much how it is done in our school, although we are not told the "magic number" to trigger a question review and the review is done by the instructors that helped write the test (each instructor writes 3.5 questions for every hour of lecture content they personally presented).

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They have nursing schools that offer pre-test reviews? Wow, I am in the wrong nursing school. I have a team of nurse instructors but the lecture one's answer to "is there a study guide?" or "will we have a review before the test?" was something along the lines of "there is no pre-test for caring for live patients. most of you won't pass this class. it's time to see who among you are serious."

She has a real love for the scantron questions with the phrase (select all that apply) haha~ Guess we will see how this ends.

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What happens? Over half the cohort flunked out or was forced out.

The diploma school I was at had instructors making their own questions. And answers. Some of the questions were nonsensical, and the situations implausible, but I digress. What happened, besides the Director of the nursing school getting suddenly fired, I mean, was on at least two exams that we know of, and possibly three, fully 75% to 80% of the cohort did not pass. We lobbied the school to either retest us, or at least disqualify questions that essentially nobody answered correctly. The school refused. Many students were flunked out of the program before graduation. The original cohort was 60-65, only 35 students completed the 24 month program, and of those, approximately 5-6 were either flunkees from the year before who resumed the next year. Or they were transfer students from other nursing schools in the area.

The school was brutal, depressing, demoralizing. It soured me on nursing forever. At the end of year 1, I was thrown out on conducts for voicing my accusations and telling them exactly what I thought. I was actually pretty happy about that, because it was all such a cluster that I was agonizing over just how I was going to endure a 2nd year that I know would be even more grueling and poorly designed than the first.

I have engineering and business degrees, a high intellect, and I was very motivated and thrilled to be in nursing school at first. I worked my orifice off, probably worked 5x as hard as I did for any college coursework. In the end I felt used, humiliated, abused, and swindled. I am fairly certain that some of the (penciled) scantron answers were changed to wrong ones, because on at least the last 2 exams I went to the reviews 1-2 weeks after the exams, and I was able to pick the correct answers. Now, if I could do that from memory 1-2 weeks later, certainly I would have chosen the correct answers on the day(s) of those exams!

Like I said, it was a really bad experience, the absolute worst psychological flogging I have ever gotten. I was furious at the disrespect this school showed for students on a routine basis. And I am a white, well-educated, heterosexual, professional woman. I feel that I was targeted because I was bright enough, old enough, and worldly enough to realize something was not right with the exams. Admittedly, part of my personal problem with The Powers might have been cultural differences, because I am a Southern Protestant, and the school and it's surrounding area are heavily Catholic Yankee, so y'all know we got a daily dose of Catholic how-to-be-servile, which would rankle me almost daily, haha.

Moral of the story: If you are going to go to nursing school, forget the hick-town hospital-based programs and go for the colleges and universities. Hospital-based programs, I feel, are shady and there is little to protect students from unfair treatment. Or a goofy and crazy curriculum. The colleges and Us are more tightly watched, supervised, and regulated. They also have block scheduling and they can't just willy-nilly go off it and do whatever the heck they want.

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Specializes in Public Health.
What happens? Over half the cohort flunked out or was forced out. The diploma school I was at had instructors making their own questions. And answers. Some of the questions were nonsensical and the situations implausible, but I digress. What happened, besides the Director of the nursing school getting suddenly fired, I mean, was on at least two exams that we know of, and possibly three, fully 75% to 80% of the cohort did not pass. We lobbied the school to either retest us, or at least disqualify questions that essentially nobody answered correctly. The school refused. Many students were flunked out of the program before graduation. The original cohort was 60-65, only 35 students completed the 24 month program, and of those, approximately 5-6 were either flunkees from the year before who resumed the next year. Or they were transfer students from other nursing schools in the area. The school was brutal, depressing, demoralizing. It soured me on nursing forever. At the end of year 1, I was thrown out on conducts for voicing my accusations and telling them exactly what I thought. I was actually pretty happy about that, because it was all such a cluster that I was agonizing over just how I was going to endure a 2nd year that I know would be even more grueling and poorly designed than the first. I have engineering and business degrees, a high intellect, and I was very motivated and thrilled to be in nursing school at first. I worked my orifice off, probably worked 5x as hard as I did for any college coursework. In the end I felt used, humiliated, abused, and swindled. I am fairly certain that some of the (penciled) scantron answers were changed to wrong ones, because on at least the last 2 exams I went to the reviews 1-2 weeks after the exams, and I was able to pick the correct answers. Now, if I could do that from memory 1-2 weeks later, certainly I would have chosen the correct answers on the day(s) of those exams! Like I said, it was a really bad experience, the absolute worst psychological flogging I have ever gotten. I was furious at the disrespect this school showed for students on a routine basis. And I am a white, well-educated, heterosexual, professional woman. I feel that I was targeted because I was bright enough, old enough, and worldly enough to realize something was not right with the exams. Admittedly, part of my personal problem with The Powers might have been cultural differences, because I am a Southern Protestant, and the school and it's surrounding area are heavily Catholic Yankee, so y'all know we got a daily dose of Catholic how-to-be-servile, which would rankle me almost daily, haha. Moral of the story: If you are going to go to nursing school, forget the hick-town hospital-based programs and go for the colleges and universities. Hospital-based programs, I feel, are shady and there is little to protect students from unfair treatment. Or a goofy and crazy curriculum. The colleges and Us are more tightly watched, supervised, and regulated. They also have block scheduling and they can't just willy-nilly go off it and do whatever the heck they want.[/quote']

While I understand what you mean, using the example that you are white and Protestant is a bit offensive. That is irrelevant.

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