Grade Inflation in Nursing School

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I've just finished my first year of nursing school (BSN)! Whew! It was hard, but I've made all As, yet for some of those As, I don't feel as proud of them as I should be. Grade Inflation in the program is rampant in almost every class, if the teachers didn't throw out so many questions (in one instance threw out 20), some of my As would be Bs.

Then there's the other side, there's been tests that I did great on, got most of the answers right originally, but to help those that performed poorly many questions were thrown out. Thus, in the end, most made As and Bs, and my grade wasn't that stellar compared to everyone else. I really do believe that if this did not occur about 20% of my class would have flunked out of nursing school.

I'll add that I am a second-degree student, and for my first bachelor's I only had one class that the teacher used a curved and I cannot recall any class where the teacher threw out questions. Basically, you got what you deserved, and an A, B, C, F accurately reflected the seriousness of the student to learn and prepare for the exam. Everyone wants an A, but it's something that should be earned, it's not a gift.

I'm curious if there are any others out there that have had this experience and how you feel about it? Does it hurt the integrity of nursing programs, and possibly the nursing profession?

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Specializes in Pediatric Pulmonology and Allergy.

I didn't feel there was grade inflation in my nursing program. An A was 95 or above, so A's were few and far between. There were questions thrown out after every test, but in no other course that I've ever taken was the ambiguous question elevated to an art form. Sorry, most nursing test questions really were that poorly written, with the wrong answer having strong support in the literature. We were always told, "Don't pick the right answer, pick the BEST answer," meaning that one or more of the "wrong" answers were actually correct but just not the BEST. Yes, I probably would have ended up with B's if questions had not been thrown out, but I don't feel that I got more than what I deserved.

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Specializes in Cardiac.

No, there is not any grade inflation at my school.

In most of our classes 1-2% (in some classes

Exams are worth 25% and contain 40 questions including alternative format. You have 50 minutes for each exam and there is no extra credit. Occasionally a question may be thrown out, but you will only get credit if you didn't already get it right the first time.

Median GPA throughout the program is most definitely a 2.0.

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Specializes in Gerontology, nursing education.

This is a huge issue among nurse educators. Grade inflation does exist at many schools. The thing is, when most programs require a C to pass, a B becomes "average" and an A doesn't always have the impact that it would have with a more traditional A-B-C-D-F system. Also, keep in mind that nursing programs are competitive. If your class is made up of students who had pre-nursing GPAs of, say, higher than 3.75, chances are they're pretty driven, have good study skills, and are capable of getting good grades.

The important thing is---are you learning? If you aren't feeling challenged and if you feel that you really are not learning anything in spite of getting good grades, you might need to go to a different program. Remember, the grade is the gravy. The learning is the meat.

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.

We do not have any grade inflation in our program, well the program I just finished. A lot of our tough/good teachers have left. My semester was their last. We ended up losing 17/18 or the original 50 and all but one of those were to grades. Rarely were any questions dropped and many students didn't pass (minimum of 77% in my program) by a fraction of a %. The teachers didn't budge. I also have never been graded on a curve in any classes.

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Questions are rarely thrown out in my program. Unless a vast majority of people get it wrong. So far in my first semester, that happens very rarely. There was a question like that on our last test. It was a fight to get it thrown out. The instructor that wrote the question did not want to but almost everyone got it wrong because it was so horribly worded. The only thing that helped our case in that scenario was that she had another question that was similar and worded quite differently that almost everyone got right.

2 other questions on another test were thrown out this semester because they were not covered in lecture. But other than those incidences, its a rare thing in my program to get questions thrown out. If most people got it right. It stays.

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Specializes in Cardiac.

2 other questions on another test were thrown out this semester because they were not covered in lecture. But other than those incidences, its a rare thing in my program to get questions thrown out. If most people got it right. It stays.

That is an incredibly liberal reason for throwing out questions.

Anything in our book is fair game. In fact, I'm not even sure how such a policy could exist in nursing school considering it is impossible to cover everything in lecture due to the volume of information.

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That is an incredibly liberal reason for throwing out questions.

Anything in our book is fair game. In fact, I'm not even sure how such a policy could exist in nursing school considering it is impossible to cover everything in lecture due to the volume of information.

It was not in our assigned readings either.

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Specializes in Cardiac.
It was not in our assigned readings either.

Carry on then. :coollook:

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Sorry, most nursing test questions really were that poorly written, with the wrong answer having strong support in the literature. We were always told, "Don't pick the right answer, pick the BEST answer," meaning that one or more of the "wrong" answers were actually correct but just not the BEST. Yes, I probably would have ended up with B's if questions had not been thrown out, but I don't feel that I got more than what I deserved.

Don't get me wrong, if a question is horribly written and a large majority of the classes misses it, yeah, I believe it should be thrown out. For instance, on one exam less than 5% got a question right and it was thrown, and that's one class I have where the teacher never throws a question. What I am referring in my original post is just throwing out questions not because they are poorly written or a large number of students miss them, but just throwing out questions to insure that those that failed now pass. I'll give a good example. We had an exam with a passing average and there was a normal bell curve (originally, before questions were thrown out); however, afterwards about 10 questions were dropped to help those that didn't pass. We were told that the statistics of the test showed that all the questions were well tested and there was no reason to drop any as a result of poor testing. I should probably add that this hasn't happened in ALL my classes so far, but three of my classes have been like this.

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Specializes in CNA.
I've just finished my first year of nursing school (BSN)!

This is very different in Associate Degree Programs. For the most part, grade inflation there is nonexistent.

In general I would say it isn't any harder to get a C in an Associate Degree Program than a BSN program, but it sure as heck is a lot harder to get an A.

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Specializes in CNA.

hmmm, not sure then. I only know of instructors throwing out questions that the majority of students missed d/t poor wording etc. But not to help people pass.

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