Clinical Grading

[ellee45]

Our school has been doing letter grades for clinical for quite some time, but now we are debating going to pass/fail. What does your school use and what pros/cons do you find for either?

[londonflo]

There is a lot of information on this in the literature. 

[ellee45]

1 hour ago, londonflo said:

There is a lot of information on this in the literature. 

What literature? Can you provide me with any? 

[londonflo]

On 3/8/2021 at 2:16 PM, ellee45 said:

Can you provide me with any? 

Here is a list of the most common nursing education journals.

https://www.osmosis.org/blog/2020/02/24/an-indepth-list-of-nursing-education-journals

Your school/college/hospital would be able to get copies of journals. Have you met with library personnel for a search?

[Hannahbanana, BSN, MSN]

This should be ongoing, not an end-of-semester final word. We all know there are students who have been cautioned, warned, corrected, and guided ad infinitum but who are astonished that they failed clinical at the end of it. 
Give written feedback every week, or at least every other week, with explicit expectations for remediation, and follow up on them. Pass - needs work on .... - fail. Everybody can have a bad week or two, we know this, but the trend should be up to reliably passing by the last few weeks of the semester. 

[EricJRN, MSN, RN]

Mine uses pass/fail, but the student has to achieve certain numeric scores (like a minimum numeric grade on care plans) in order to pass. 

[jeanbeth, MSN, DNP, RN]

My school uses pass/fail and we evaluate student progress each week, looking for just that - progress. Our students go to different clinical sites so it is deemed unfair to grade students on practice skills when some students may have more opportunity than others to shadow and observe nurses before actually performing the skill.

[Rnis, BSN, DNP, APRN, NP]

We do pass/fall  with weekly check ins each week at clinical that we both initial off on.  This has been true at both schools I have taught clinical at in the past few years.   I much prefer pass/fail. It is very hard to come up with an objective grade in the clinical setting and the bar that clinical instructors have varies greatly among a cohort.  For instance, I am doing a hybrid course with another instructor and I think all of my students are doing well for a first clinical experience (though there is  definitely room for growth which we discuss) . I gave one verbal warning this semester...... my co-instructor has formally written up 3 students.  We just have different expectations........