Grading Criteria

[wbfoley3]

Hello Nursing Students,

I am trying to gather some information as part of researching grading criteria used by Nursing Schools -- specifically for Nursing Fundamentals Class at this point but open to information on other Nursing classes that include Laboratory and Clinical time. In a nut shell, I am trying to figure out whether or not schools include something from the laboratory and clinical portions into the grading for the fundamentals class.

For example, one school in Virginia has a eight semester hour class for nursing fundamentals and uses the following grading criteria:

5 exams - 60%

Comprehensive Final - 30%

HESI - 5%

Class Assignments - 5%

Note that there is nothing included as far as laboratory or clinical work and assignments -- so all of that work is not reflected into the final grade assigned to the eight semester hours.

I would appreciate copies of your syllabus/grading rubric to help me with the data gathering portion of this research.

Thanks,

Bill Foley

[umbdude, MSN, APRN]

That's pretty typical. My fundamental course had 3 exams + 1 final, and each exam is worth 25%. We had many many labs and clinical hours (many assignments from clinical), and none of them were included in our grade. It's the same for every other nursing course. Sometimes we get 5% for assignments and another 5% from ATI tests, but in general only exam grades are counted.

[WanderingWilder, ASN]

Lab and clinical are pass/fail. Our grade is based on lecture tests and written work only.

[Scottishtape]

My program is the same as Wandering's.

Clinical and lab is pass/fail, as are the main dosage exams at the beginning of every semester. Our grades are only calculated based on our exams, assignments, and HESIs.

[NICUismylife, ADN, BSN, RN]

Lab and clinical are pass/fail. Our grade is based on lecture tests and written work only.

Same.here

[SouthernBelle85]

Ours are

Quizzes/Assignments 10%

Exams 80%

Finals 10%

[NICUismylife, ADN, BSN, RN]

An additional note. The final was comprehensive and was 40% of our grade. This was common practice in my nursing program to ensure that the info had been retained. One could literally go into the final with an "A" and fail the class if one hadn't retained the necessary info. Again, this was in all of my courses.

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

My program too, separated lecture/skills lab/clinical. Lecture grade was based on exams and written assignments; lab and clinical were pass/fail.

[lunanarya, BSN, RN]

Our school also separates Fundamentals into a lecture only course, and our lab/skill/clinical rotations into a Clinical Practice course.

Our instructors use a traditional grading scale where anything below a 76% is failing and has to be remediated.

Fundamentals: Exams 95% + Assignments/Quizzes 5% = 100%

Clinical Practice: Lab skills, math, Lab work 70% + Quizzes 5% + Lab Exams 20% + ATI practice, proctored 5% =100%