I am a student at one of the Accelerated programs (public institution) in the country. I am writing you guys to know of your thoughts and advice on what I and a few of our classmates' perception as grade deflation by our professor and what we can do about it. We can call her by Professor A.
Professor A is our program coordinator as well as professors for Fundamentals, Med-Surg, Pharmacology etc. The past quarter, approx 20% of the class failed (12 out of 48) either Fundamentals and Intro to Pharm. This quarter, the class median and mean grade for Med Surg are 81.9%, 80.5% respectively and for Pharm are 83.78% and 83.5%--Basically Cs.
My question is--what can we do to change this hard core, grade deflation policy? We thought that when this happened during the first quarter, its just an adjustment period, but alas, it has continued to this quarter and nothing has changed in terms of her exams, etc. The main problem, I think is that on her exam--say, 50 questions--30 questions would be easy, 10 questions--hard, while 10 questions is "out of this world"--basically, questions that were not covered during lecture, and so we would just be guessing the answers on.
My classmates and I are just concerned that with Cs in our grades, we would be at a disadvantaged when we apply to Grad school, etc. This is a class that is made up of professionals and career changers and has had the highest entering GPA according to admissions advisers. I, for one, have studied long and hard for each exam and has had a Median C to boast of. It is one of the most frustrating education program I have ever done and it is discouraging a lot of my fellow classmates.
Appreciate any suggestions of steps we need to do and know of. Has anyone ever experienced this, what steps did you do and what happened afterwards ? What are the chances of this (grade deflation policy or professor) being changed ?
Yeah, it definitely sounds like the typical nursing school...but here's a thought--how about approaching the instructor in a polite, "un-defensive" manner and asking her for some tips in studying for her exams? I had quite a few classes where I approached the instructor and said something like, "I find this material very interesting and I've put in quite a bit of time into studying for exams...yet the results (ie grades) aren't what I expected. Do you have any suggestions for me to improve my performance?" I never ran into an instructor who didn't give me some tips and suggestions. Worst case scenario, you're back at square one. But in any case, I would definitely seek out the instructor for some assistance...then it won't just look like you're trying to "take the easy way out." I can guarantee you that if everyone "gangs up" on the professor, it won't have a good outcome. I've seen it in my own nursing school experience. Good luck with everything.
Professor A is our program coordinator as well as professors for Fundamentals, Med-Surg, Pharmacology etc. The past quarter, approx 20% of the class failed (12 out of 48) either Fundamentals and Intro to Pharm. This quarter, the class median and mean grade for Med Surg are 81.9%, 80.5% respectively and for Pharm are 83.78% and 83.5%--Basically Cs.
Am I missing something? Isn't this what a C means? I am not sure what the problem is.
What are the chances of this (grade deflation policy or professor) being changed ?
Approximately ZERO. Like others have stated, that is the way it is. In my class, 93% is an A and 77 is a C.
I have a question for you: What is the grade distribution in your class? How many As? I am on track to get an A this semester but many people in my class, including me, were making the same sounds you were when we got a load of those goofy test questions.
The stated reason for the grading policies is to increase NCLEX passing rates through better preparation. But I agree with you that the de facto reason is grade deflation. A few years back, people started noticing that the number of students graduating nursing programs with high GPAs was climbing, but NCLEX pass rates were not (not that you need to be a top student to pass board exams).
My program is very stingy with As. They ensure almost no one gets 100% on exams by having around 5% of the test questions have almost completely subjective rationales. They usually do this by starting with a good test question they got from some NCLEX resource, then screwing it up by changing the answers. These questions basically become "coin flips", guaranteed to keep test scores from being too high. A perfect score means a good day flipping coins. (No professor would ever admit this.) They make clinical checkoffs as tricky as they can so a certain percentage has to remediate and they have total control over grades awarded in clinical. The result: very few As and the reputation of my program as "tough" and "challenging" is cemented. My program does have one of the best NCLEX pass rates in the state, but we would still have high pass rates with a few more As.
Professors also throw in the "test on information not even mentioned in passing during lecture" questions and one of our professors seems to pride herself on giving almost completely worthless lectures, then creating super clever and obscure test questions. Can't wait to leave her behind next year.
I remember one professor stating, "Complain all you want, but nursing exams are not going to change." I wanted to respond, "Perhaps your teaching style CAN change - or maybe improve?" but of course I kept quiet.
I'm really not sure if this counts as grade deflation. When I think of grade inflation I think of my Biology teacher who counted an 82 as an A- even though the official college policy was that an 82 is a B- so I think of grade deflation as doing just the opposite. If your professor is complying with the college's grading policy then I'm not really sure it's grade deflation. Most exams in nursing school your going to find that maybe half off the questions seem easy or straight forward, a quarter of them are somewhat difficult and the last quarter are beyond difficult. Its just the way that things are and you are most likely not going to be able to change anything even if you and your whole class tries to talk to this professor. If the professor believes that you are ganging up on them then they will get defensive and angry and things will just get worse for you guys. What I would suggest is that you (by yourself) go to your professor and ask politely if they have any suggestions for you to improve your exam grades, explain that you are studying now and you were just hoping that the professor might be able to provide you with some tips on how to focus your studies and achieve better results. I know that another user already mentioned this in their post. Keep in mind that as you progress in your studies you will find that a lot of exams will include questions that are critical thinking which may not come directly from your instructor's presentations or from a textbook but it requires you to use the nursing knowledge that you have to choose the best option for a patient.
Sounds like a typical school. I know we've lost people this semester, some due to "life events" and some due to grades. 78 is passing at our school.
But I can understand your frustration. At the school I'm in- we are the LAST RN diploma class. The school applied for and got accredited for a BSN program. In other words- you fail a class, there is NOTHING to drop back into. You have to apply to the BSN program, and there's no guarantee that you'll get in if you were in the diploma program.
And this stinks. Because we lost people this semester due to "life events", and the only thing the faculty told us was "Well- you knew what you were getting into on day 1". Even when we've argued that it was a "life event" that was beyond the person's control.:angryfire
Which is frustrating because we did NOT know that the school was changing it's program until ORIENTATION, which was about a month before class started. And at that point, I'd already had to wait to get BACK into a program, so I just went with it- not knowing just how bad the stress would get at some times.
If I had known that they were thinking about this, I wouldn't have even bothered to send in my application, and I would have just waited for the BSN program. I was thinking that they'd at least have 1 more class after us- since the actual in-class part of the BSN program doesn't start until August '10.
My professor was exactly like that 15 yrs ago. My theory is that they are trying to teach you that if you think this "caring profession" extends to co-workers and subordinates: FUHGETABOUTIT!
i guess i am the only one looking at the OP in the way that i am. My take was that the students feel that the instructor is purposefully testing them on info that they have no reason to know. Thereby DEFLATING their grades.
**faith**
4 Posts
Sounds like typical nursing class to me. Don't rock the boat; change the way you think. We have all had to do that.