Grade Inflation in Nursing School

[Rhapsody86]

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?

[watersamy]

I definately picked the wrong school. We had to work our butts off just to make a B.

[Witty3RN]

I have to say that I'm shocked after I read the Op's post, I must go to a really tough school. I can't imagine our instructors curving grades (or throwing out questions) just to increase the overall average score of the class. There is no sugar coating in my program - you have to study hard and know your stuff.

[Clovery]

My fundamentals instructor would sometimes throw a question out if a certain percentage of students got it wrong (I think 75% or more) and she felt it was an ambiguous question. She would then keep the number of correct items you earned and change the denominator - for example 40/50 would become 40/49 regardless of your answer to the question being tossed. I think this is a fair way to do it. My peds & OB instructors would add points to everyone's score to compensate for "bad" questions. The peds instructor was especially liberal - one test she added 8 points to everyone's grade because some of the questions weren't covered in the review and people complained "you said we didn't have to know that". So my 88 became a 96. I wasn't nearly as proud of that 96 as I would have been if I had really earned it. But I'm not going to complain about it either. I think the lesser experienced instructors are more likely to give away points, maybe because they have less confidence in their teaching or they're worried that lower test scores will reflect poorly upon them. Considering we need an 80% to pass, I don't think this practice disrupts the integrity of the nursing program. I do think that there should be a standardized method for throwing out questions that is consistent throughout the courses in my nursing program. The way it's been done so far seems kind of arbitrary.

[mmc51264, BSN, MSN, RN]

I am in an ADN program and it is near impossible to get an A. First semester, we were on a six point scale so my 86.4 for the semester was a C. I have a 4.0 in grad school. Talk about reality check.

First semester GPA 2.0, second 2.0. We complained that we were not going to be able to go on with such sucky GPAs, they did alter it so 91 is an A, 85 B, 80 is C and anything below is failing. Third semester, I managed a 3.0 but this semester, we have one 10 hour class. That is going to KILL my GPA if I can't get at least a B. First test, 75% of the class failed the test. We are all peeing in our pants. Scared to death. We have had 35/36 people get a question wrong and they wouldn't throw it out. We have had a test review, but we have not found out whether they are going to throw questions out. The only reason they throw any out are for obvious multiple, correct answers or terrible typos.

*sigh* Our class motto/mascot is now Dory from "Nemo" JUST KEEP SWIMMING

[shortnorthstudent]

In the actual nursing courses, I do not see any grade inflation. I am in an ADN program and set to graduate this June. In the preceeding 15 months, I believe our instructors have thrown out no more than 4 or 5 questions total. Our entire grades are exam based, no credit for papers or other work. Our seminars and clinicals are pass/fail. I vividly recall 3rd quarter sitting in the exam review for the final and a student spending a significant amount of time arguing over a diabetes question. My recollection is that none of the responses was very good, but it was straight out of Lewis. The instructors refused to throw the question out because it had direct support from our text. That student did not pass. I believe that they do analyze our exams and look to see what percent of students (and which students) are answering questions correctly and incorrectly. Just because a question has a high incorrect rate does not lead to it being thrown out. Often the people getting it correct are the leaders in the class and that leaves the instructors with a basis for belief that the question is answerable by those who work hard. In our grade scale a 92 is an A, an 84 is a B and a 76 is a C. We lost slightly greater than 1/2 our original cohort in the past 15 minutes.

On the other hand, some of the pre and co-reqs have had grade inflation. Lots of bonus points, to the point that I wound up with an average over 100% in my nutrition class. Unfortunately, this tends to lead to students getting into the nursing program here who did well in their pre-reqs, but are unprepared for the more rigorous nursing courses.

[Kuniklo]

Many professors use the same exams year after year, so usually the question that everyone gets wrong are the ones with content that weren't discussed in class, weren't on study guides/slides, or were based off of info from an older edition of the textbook.

[lifelearningrn, BSN, RN]

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.

In my BSN program less than 2% of the class got an A in Assessment Across the Life Span- the hardest class in the first semester.

My point- BSN programs are just as hard core as ADN programs.. I don't mean to attack you but there is a whole lot of misconception on this site about BSN programs being 'easier' or not having as many requirements, classes, prereqs, or GPA requirements as ADN programs. It's simply not true. It's a petpeeve of mine- and just inaccurate.

As far as the original poster goes- my best advice is not to worry about others getting better grades than they deserve and worry about your own GPA. Do you feel like you're learning? If so, keep on keeping on, in the end, you're only there for yourself.