Select all that apply...??

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · Feb 7, 2013

Ladies and gents, there's an excellent reason for these questions, a relatively new addition to the NCLEX armamentarium. It's a simple one: nursing very rarely has just one answer, one intervention, one thing to think about. The example someone gave above of doing a few good things but then, alas, forgetting to stabilize the c-spine is an excellent one. Knowing that nursing schools model their tests on NCLEX to prepare their students for it, NCLEX has decided to make sure that their NCLEX tests prompt schools to teach better critical thinking skills: Seeing the big picture, with more components than a single memorizable fact, is, well, a critical skill to have in a new grad, and one that is often sadly lacking.

Therefore, SATA questions in the NCLEX make schools include more SATA questions in their exams, which in turn makes faculty more likely to emphasize critical thinking skills in their instructional efforts. Yes, you betcha, it's more work, and not just for you-- it means faculty has to think more broadly, too, and explore ways to get those concepts across and broader thinking habits ingrained in students. But if we don't, then students don't have the opportunity to learn, and in the end, patients suffer.

Oh....did somebody tell you nursing was going to be easy? Sorry.