Lowest Passage Rate in all 50 States for Nurses

U.S.A. West Virginia

Published

Well it is official. The Charleston Gazette printed a big story on this fact in todays paper. WV has the lowest rate for passage of the NCLEX test of all 50 states. The Gazette stated that every school in the state but two had decreased passage rates despite taking the best and brightest students they could get. Every school is attempting to increase their passage rates and re-evaluate their programs. Of course, every school is saying the need for instructors is critical. So, anybody have any thoughts on this subject?

It has been forever since I went to school. My cousin is in nursing school now, she has called me several times, seeking assistance. When I tell her what I see as a problem, she freaks out. When we discuss skills, she freaks out. This girl will graduate in May, and to me, she has no idea what to do or how to do it. She is a honor student, has gone to all clinicals, and is very bright. I am at a loss on what to tell her. I just know I do not want her as a nurse for me or my family. Too many times when I have attempted to show her an area she is missing in a care plan, or I have attempted to give her advice, tips on assessments or skills, she says "we do not do that now."

So, what do younger nurses do now? Have basic nursing practice's changed so much?

About a year ago, when care plans really became an issue with her group, several older nurses were asked to assist these students, we met, were broke up into groups, started working on different patients and their care plans. I was amazed, no one had a idea of how to formulate a nursing diagnosis, set realistic nursing interventions, set time defined improvments or set realistic evaluation periods. Lets just say patient teaching, developing tips for coping skills for patients and the family, and long range patient goals were not even covered. Am I nuts? This is how I nurse, sure I fall short at times, but how in the world do these girls expect to come out of school and take care of patients if they have no plan, no interventions, no evaluations, no goals, or no patients teaching? How do you not know some basic problems patients face with a disease?

Sorry this is so long guys, but I am truly baffled. I am scared too. I just do not know what nursing is these days, at least, around here.:o

Specializes in Psych/Rehab/Family practice/Oncology.

This thread brings up something I have wondered about. Is there a central place to go to find out pass rates of different schools with dates? I'm sure many will know the answer to this, but I don't. Also, I worked with many who had gone to a different school that had a poor passing rate. Most of them retested and became great nurses, and the ones that passed first time became great nurses, even though their school did have high failure.

Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.
This thread brings up something I have wondered about. Is there a central place to go to find out pass rates of different schools with dates? I'm sure many will know the answer to this, but I don't. Also, I worked with many who had gone to a different school that had a poor passing rate. Most of them retested and became great nurses, and the ones that passed first time became great nurses, even though their school did have high failure.

I don't know of one single state for the whole country. However many State Boards post the passing rates for the last few years on their web sites. Go to the web site for the State Board in which the school is located and see if the one that interests you is there.

I am going back and forth as to whether I should post my opinion or not. If you read the article Barefootlady posted (not my link I posted) there are a few things that are extremely concerning to me.

I've been in and out of nursing education in a few different places for close to 15 years now, and I agree completely. I have no idea how all of this happened, but nursing education seems to have really gone off the rails somehow.

Let me suggest: Teaching to the test. I've seen it happen in the Paramedic programs and bet the same is happening in Nursing. When someone comes up with THE test to pass to gain the license, all eyes go toward that, not the job. I was taught how to be a Paramedic, how to do the job, how to get the results (and all the science and theory behind it). I was ready to work when i got out of school. Today, new grads that i know are not ready to take care of patients independently.

I only took the NCLEX once (5 months ago), so i don't really know much about it. But i do know that it had precious little to do with the nursing job that i am now doing. I would say that passing or failing that thing does not predict how good a nurse you will be.

Having said that, perhaps the WVa schools that have a low pass rate are doing the best teaching!icon12.gif

You see the same thing in NoChildLeftBehind. Teachers are getting caught test-teaching because the pass rate is the sole indicator of successful teaching. That might be OK is the test were all-encompassing and accurate, but none are. It takes a portfolio of work to judge someone against.:twocents:

Specializes in Trauma ICU, Surgical ICU, Medical ICU.

I just read this and I graduated from WVU in Aug '07. I passed NCLEX on the 1st try. All I have to say is the NCLEX is a joke. It DOES NOT determine anything in my mind and I know many people who failed the test who passed later and were great nurses! Just because we have a low passage rate doesnt mean the nurses are at all incompetent of doing their job and I just hope people dont see it as that. It's just another test. You dont learn anything until you do it day in and day out.

Also, I know I wasnt taught HOW to test until my senior year!! We were taught a lot of useless knowledge until then We were never taught any NCLEX style questions until that year either. Mix that in with a lot of useless classes (rural and health assessment comes to mind, like u cant learn that in clinical!!??!) you are wasting a lot of time and not getting much back. We needed classes directly meant to get you to past that stupid test and we had none! I dont think the problem is the instructors, its the material. We had one 3 hour seminar by a person from the NCLEX board who taught us HOW to test and we all left saying "man I wish we had that at the beginning of nursing school!" we got more material in 3 hours than 3 years! Thats pretty sad! Anyway, I got through it and passed and I work in one of the best critical care units in the country, got accepted as a new grad, and I had to learn a whole new way of thinking. I dont feel one bit behind as a new nurse or feel that I didnt have enough education to get me to this point. What I didnt know I learned when I needed it. Just my :twocents:!

Let me suggest: Teaching to the test. I've seen it happen in the Paramedic programs and bet the same is happening in Nursing. When someone comes up with THE test to pass to gain the license, all eyes go toward that, not the job. I was taught how to be a Paramedic, how to do the job, how to get the results (and all the science and theory behind it). I was ready to work when i got out of school. Today, new grads that i know are not ready to take care of patients independently.

I only took the NCLEX once (5 months ago), so i don't really know much about it. But i do know that it had precious little to do with the nursing job that i am now doing. I would say that passing or failing that thing does not predict how good a nurse you will be.

Having said that, perhaps the WVa schools that have a low pass rate are doing the best teaching!icon12.gif

You see the same thing in NoChildLeftBehind. Teachers are getting caught test-teaching because the pass rate is the sole indicator of successful teaching. That might be OK is the test were all-encompassing and accurate, but none are. It takes a portfolio of work to judge someone against.:twocents:

But the licensure exam has been around for decades, inc. back when we were doing a good job of preparing nursing students to enter practice. That hasn't been a change.

Specializes in Rodeo Nursing (Neuro).
I just read this and I graduated from WVU in Aug '07. I passed NCLEX on the 1st try. All I have to say is the NCLEX is a joke. It DOES NOT determine anything in my mind and I know many people who failed the test who passed later and were great nurses! Just because we have a low passage rate doesnt mean the nurses are at all incompetent of doing their job and I just hope people dont see it as that. It's just another test. You dont learn anything until you do it day in and day out.

Also, I know I wasnt taught HOW to test until my senior year!! We were taught a lot of useless knowledge until then We were never taught any NCLEX style questions until that year either. Mix that in with a lot of useless classes (rural and health assessment comes to mind, like u cant learn that in clinical!!??!) you are wasting a lot of time and not getting much back. We needed classes directly meant to get you to past that stupid test and we had none! I dont think the problem is the instructors, its the material. We had one 3 hour seminar by a person from the NCLEX board who taught us HOW to test and we all left saying "man I wish we had that at the beginning of nursing school!" we got more material in 3 hours than 3 years! Thats pretty sad! Anyway, I got through it and passed and I work in one of the best critical care units in the country, got accepted as a new grad, and I had to learn a whole new way of thinking. I dont feel one bit behind as a new nurse or feel that I didnt have enough education to get me to this point. What I didnt know I learned when I needed it. Just my :twocents:!

There are quite a lot of WVU graduates at my facility, for some strange reason (It's like they were right next door, or something) and on the whole they seem to be very good, well-prepared nurses. When I was at Fairmont State, we looked upon WVU as where you went if you couldn't get into Fairmont--but I think that may have been mostly due to a slight excess in school spirit.

The class before mine at good old FSC&TC, (now Pierpont)which graduated in 2004, seemed like a group of overachievers, but their NCLEX pass rate was not as stellar as it had been in previous years. My class ('05) rode to school on the short bus, but our pass rate was about the same. I don't think anyone would say our program didn't focus enough on passing the test.

Pretty much all of our exams had a fair proportion (didn't seem so fair, at the time) of NCLEX-style questions, and we took HESI tests every semester, except maybe the first.

As I recall, there was a fair amount of discussion that the content for NCLEX had changed for the '04 year, with a lot more advanced nursing questions, like ventilator management. (I seem to remember only having one vent question--so maybe "page respiratory and pray" was the right answer?) I seem to remember several questions on psych meds, though, until I must have finally gotten to the one that had "avoid bright sunlight" as one of its answers (to this day, if I give Tylenol, I warn patients to avoid bright sunlight...well, you know, the ozone layer ain't what it used to be.)

There's a lot of discussion of the inadequacies of nursing education and orientation on the thread "Hospitals SUCK at orientation"

https://allnurses.com/forums/f224/hospitals-suck-orientation-289031.html

and a number of pretty good ideas of what could be done about it. I do get the impression that nursing schools used to do a better job of teaching nursing skills before they got so focused on NCLEX. On the other hand, you can be a wizard at venipuncture, and if you don't pass NCLEX, you're a phlebotomist. Most of the experienced nurses I've talked to are very good at the basic skills--but then, they've been doing them a long time. Most also say the first year of nursing practice was a hard one. It makes sense to me that no matter how well prepared one is in school, practicing in the real world is going to be a learning experience.

I have some feelings about studying (and testing) for a profession, then entering something that feels, at least to me, very like a trade, but comments about graduate nurses who can't compose a proper paragraph

makes me wonder how much of the problem is with primary and secondary education. Certainly, reading skills play an important part in passing NCLEX. Many of the support courses required for a nursing degree are things we should have learned long before college. On the whole, I think my nursing program was about as good as it could be, which is to say, pretty darned good. In many of my support classes, I was really impressed by the quality of the faculty at such a smallish school in a smallish town in an "insignificant" state. But I occassionally joked that I was attending Fairmont State Middle School for those courses not composed principally of nursing and paramedic students, like English or American Government. The instructors were great, but they had to spend an inordinate amount of time on things like constructing a proper sentence.

I think I speak and write English like a native, but I must say there were some questions on NCLEX that took all my ability to decipher.

I graduated from a nursing school in 07' the year when the NCLEX was re-done. My college had a failing pass rate but this was not due to the education. Nursing consumed my life and for the person who stated that nursing schools are "dumming down" the degree of education you receive is appaling. People know more about the body now than they did 30,20, even 5 years ago and with this knowledge people expect nurses to know it all. I feel that not everyone is meant to be a nurse. People are drawn to nursing for different reasons but most of the time it is job security and pay. I think people assume that it is an easy profession and once they get into the program might struggle all the way through barely passing up until graduation take the NCLEX and fail five times. Why? Because not everyone is meant to be a nurse. The thinking and constant assessing one must have are key compenents of being a successful nurse. Some people just don't have it. Just because you earn the degree does not mean you are a nurse automatically. Some colleges have teachers who haven't been in a hospital setting in thirty years so how can they effectively teach students about bedside manner and procedures when they haven't practiced or performed them for years. Developing a more thorough assessment of students coming into programs is key in getting nurses that have the ability to pass the NCLEX not only the wish. Getting teachers who have experience, the ability to relate with students, and the ability to get students to become excited and wrapped up in the material they are studying.

This lack of quality in nursing education is also very evident in MSN programs too! No doubt! I was shocked when I started my MSN program at what I heard was a good school We make copies of the Power Point presentations before class and have readings to do, but in class, the instructor reads word-for-word the exact words on the PP. I am underlining the same thing I printed the night before. Very serious! No rationale, no real teaching, no reasoning, no lecture. not only that, it is the PP from past years! The dates are not changed on some. Laziness to me! However, the tests are all application to the clinical setting. Talk about disjointed! I gathered we are supposed to do the teaching part ourselves. Wondering what I paid for. Will get a good study guide to study for boards. Will need it too. Barinbass.

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