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 ?
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.
When I was in nursing school, I would have been thrilled to have 30 EASY questions. We usually had about 40 hard questions and 10 we never discussed but could be found in the reading. I can guarantee you wont know all the answers to the NCLEX, your instructor is preparing you for that. Are the "out of this world" questions discussed in the assigned reading?
My take was that the students feel that the instructor is purposefully testing them on info that they have no reason to know
If the answers can be found in the reading, they have reason to know it
Ditto everyone else that this is normal. Can you be specific on how this is a "grade deflating policy?"
Yes, our passing is C (77 to 84); B (85 to 92); A (93 above.)
I know I dont want to sound like sour graping but I have an actual comparison. My wife also graduated from a BSN accelerated program and she got Bs and As...though I must admit her entering class GPAs is higher than ours and plus hers is a University (BSN) whereas mine is an ASN (Accelerated Community College).
I heard that community college's RN program treats their students like "kids" and make them work harder. Anyway, just have to deal with this crap until we master what teachers want from us.
When I was in nursing school, I would have been thrilled to have 30 EASY questions. We usually had about 40 hard questions and 10 we never discussed but could be found in the reading. I can guarantee you wont know all the answers to the NCLEX, your instructor is preparing you for that. Are the "out of this world" questions discussed in the assigned reading?
If the answers can be found in the reading, they have reason to know it
Ditto everyone else that this is normal. Can you be specific on how this is a "grade deflating policy?"
my thought was, that indeed, the answers were not to be found there.....i thought i had made that obvious
I will tell you after graduating from community college I did feel well prepared. There were others that graduated from other types of programs that had a more difficult time getting used to everything. It was hard, but it was worth it.
TooterIA
189 Posts
When I was in nursing school, I would have been thrilled to have 30 EASY questions. We usually had about 40 hard questions and 10 we never discussed but could be found in the reading. I can guarantee you wont know all the answers to the NCLEX, your instructor is preparing you for that. Are the "out of this world" questions discussed in the assigned reading?
If the answers can be found in the reading, they have reason to know it
Ditto everyone else that this is normal. Can you be specific on how this is a "grade deflating policy?"