Did we fail the test or were we failed by our educators?

[shmajo]

Hello everyone!

I currently attend a private college in the northeastern portion of the United States. I am one term away from graduating with my ADN, BUT myself and entire class have run into a major roadblock. We are one week away from this term ending, and the entire class has failed all three exams and are subsequently failing the class. Not by a little, but severely failing. Our grades range from 56% to 74% in the class and we all know a 78% is key to success.

Our teacher and other educators such as the DON, ADON, etc. continue to tell us WE are the problem, WE do not know how to study, and these tests are so easy a LPN student can pass them! Our college seems to care less that literally not one student will be in the next term due to entire class failure... I find it hard to believe that we have no one who is trying to "fix" this problem.

Our teacher will not curve the grades whatsoever, we are told we do not know how to take tests. It's quite funny when the majority of us are working LPNs but we are not "real nurses" and do not know how to read a test. I have spent countless hours studying like any "prudent nurse" would do... I am not looking to be handed my RN, BUT I also feel that there needs to be a fair shot, not be told after almost a year into this program passing all classes that I have "poor test taking skills"... shouldn't I have run into that issue awhile ago?

ANYWAYS... Has anyone run into this problem during nursing school? How was it resolved? If we all fail, who can we take our issues to? The dean of the RN program also says we are the problem too, so it is pointless to address this with her. I can speak for my class when we say we are past the point of feeling defeated... we are losing the love of nursing due to this college.

Any advice and/or comments are welcome... but please no negativity. I am not sure how much more my mind can handle!

Sincerely,

One frazzled nursing student

[oceanblue52]

That is a terribly stressful situation you are going through, no negativity from me. Don't really have practical advice but will say that for every class I had in school, teachers would assess questions and either throw them out or add a point if too many of us answered wrong. What kind of questions are you failing? Are you doing practice questions from the book and also an NCLEX guide like Saunders? Once you get that critical thinking down sometimes you can answer a question even if you aren't quite sure of the answer. Hopefully somebody else will have more practical advice. Remember why you went into nursing, I think pretty much all of us had a terrible class or 2 that we dreaded trying to get through. *hugs*

[elkpark]

When you say "private college," do you mean one of the private-for-profit businesses? They are notorious for screwing their students over.

[shmajo]

Yes it is! Over 30+ grand for this program.

[shmajo]

I speak for myself right now, but when I do practice NCLEX & HESI questions I do much better than I do on these so called tests. I know we all try to find resources to pass the test & learn but we are so lost where our test info is coming from we don't even know where to look!

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

Hmm - commercial schools are focused on maintaining revenue by keeping tuition and fees rolling in so It would actually benefit a school to keep students enrolled & as long as possible. But right now, there's some background stuff happening that could be having a major effect.

At the same time though, the whole for-profit education industry is under a lot of scrutiny. ACICS, the primary for-profit 'generic' accreditation agency has recently been stripped of authority by the DOE... which means those schools have a limited amount of time to become accredited by a legitimate agency or they'll have to shut their doors completely. So - - the for-profits seem to be trying to clean up their acts in order to achieve re-accreditation because if they can't, they'll have to shut their doors.

Important factors accreditation for higher education include the 'graduation rate' and job placement rates of their students. For nursing programs, this includes NCLEX pass rates. Obviously, there is insufficient information to determine whether any of these factors are affecting OP's program, but.... it might explain why they are taking such a hard line.

[Kuriin, BSN, RN]

This is a situation that is definitely unique as you mentioned the entire class is failing, not just one person. If that's the case, then it does sound like there's some issues with the teacher.

[tiny_nurse]

Just curious, is this an online school or brick-and-mortar?

I've had a crappy experience with a "hybrid program" at one point. An ENTIRE CLASS failing is just such an obvious money grab...

[pmabraham, BSN, RN]

Good day:

In my opinion, if an entire class fails the class, then it is the professor, material, test questions; aka it is a systemic problem vs. localized to a small number of students. Now, the sad part is that chances are very high the root of the problem is you are going to a private college. I do hope you and your classmates can appeal and complete your journey.

Thank you.

[shmajo]

Hmm - commercial schools are focused on maintaining revenue by keeping tuition and fees rolling in so It would actually benefit a school to keep students enrolled & as long as possible. But right now, there's some background stuff happening that could be having a major effect.

At the same time though, the whole for-profit education industry is under a lot of scrutiny. ACICS, the primary for-profit 'generic' accreditation agency has recently been stripped of authority by the DOE... which means those schools have a limited amount of time to become accredited by a legitimate agency or they'll have to shut their doors completely. So - - the for-profits seem to be trying to clean up their acts in order to achieve re-accreditation because if they can't, they'll have to shut their doors.

Important factors accreditation for higher education include the 'graduation rate' and job placement rates of their students. For nursing programs, this includes NCLEX pass rates. Obviously, there is insufficient information to determine whether any of these factors are affecting OP's program, but.... it might explain why they are taking such a hard line.

this is very interesting... you would think if we are all failing they'd be more worried about pass rates? We are currently the first class to begin a "concept based" curriculum and it is absolutely awful. I learned so much during my LPN ... RN not so much

[shmajo]

Just curious, is this an online school or brick-and-mortar?

I've had a crappy experience with a "hybrid program" at one point. An ENTIRE CLASS failing is just such an obvious money grab...

There are 5 free standing colleges in our state. We are the first students of a new concept base curriculum vs. a knowledge based one. It's terrible... we are stripped of resources and told to "critically think" but we aren't even taught the material we need to "think" about. We've had online classes, which I've aced them all, but this course is ridiculous.

[shmajo]

Good day:

In my opinion, if an entire class fails the class, then it is the professor, material, test questions; aka it is a systemic problem vs. localized to a small number of students. Now, the sad part is that chances are very high the root of the problem is you are going to a private college. I do hope you and your classmates can appeal and complete your journey.

Thank you.

That's how we all feel too... however we are overpowered by the school faculty who will not let it out that we are doing so poorly. Also, we discussed appealing our final if we all fail again but they won't put our grades in until the week after finals as our appeals have to be in the week of finals. Make sense right? I don't know who go to who is above the school itself!!!