Grading policy for clinical

[malenurse2bt]

Hi Guys,

Im trying to convince my school to change its clinical grading policy from P/F to making clinical part of the courses final grade. If any of your schools do that, I'd appreciate if you guys could tell me what your schools are. My faculty told me to so research on other schools who have the policy I'm proposing to convince to change.

Thank you

[MMC.RN]

My school used to grade A-F when it came to clinicals, however changed in my last semester to P/F. Honestly, I liked the P/F a lot better as did most of my classmates and professors. It's difficult to grade someone A-F in a clinical setting and many professors found it hard to quantify what constitutes an A versus a B. May I ask why you want to change the policy?

[augurey]

My school is unsatisfactory / marginal / satisfactory. If a student gets marginal, they are on clinical probation the next semester and must achieve satisfactory the following semester. They told us that it was actually better for us to do unsatisfactory / satisfactory versus giving a clinical grade (in regards to gpa).

From what I've read on here, though I could be wrong, pass / fail seems to be the norm for most schools.

[windsurfer8, BSN, RN]

Why are you proposing to change it? Do you have evidence of a reason why? Even if another school does this you will need evidence as to whether it improves...what? Higher NCLEX pass rate? Higher graduation rate? What exactly are you trying to accomplish? You will also need to view the possible repercussions of this. Clinical instructors will need clear guidelines on the differences between each grade. They will have to give a letter grade to what? Each and every thing they do during a clinical? How do you propose the clinical instructor will grade 10 students with 10 different nurses working with different patients? By implementing a letter grade to clinical it could affect how students view the clinical as opposed to simply trying to learn how to work on a ward. Most of the work in a clinical is not quantifiable as is a test you score an 80% on.

[APRN., DNP, RN, APRN, NP]

Hi Guys,

Im trying to convince my school to change its clinical grading policy from P/F to making clinical part of the courses final grade. If any of your schools do that, I'd appreciate if you guys could tell me what your schools are. My faculty told me to so research on other schools who have the policy I'm proposing to convince to change.

Thank you

You could do a search for qualitative and quantitative methods of nursing clinical grading practices......and I don't mean a Google search either ~ I mean EBSCO, CINAHL, etc.

There is data out there.

Please be advised, however, that as you are seeking a change in the grading practices of the clinical performance of yourself and your peers, you may find that it is not so simple to roll a clinical grade into a theory grade.

[NurseEmmy]

I would think a letter grade would be pretty difficult to provide for a clinical setting. Obviously care plans would be easy to grade, but clinical skills would be a bit more difficult. I too wonder why you (the OP) want to change from P/F to the grade average? You should be getting a grade for the classroom portion of your semester so it isn't as if you aren't getting a GPA from that.

[NICUmiiki, DNP, NP]

Our clinical was part of the overall course and was pass/fail. The class determined the letter grade. Then, you must pass the clinical portion to pass the class.

Downsides were if you failed clinical, even with an A in the class, you failed the entire course. And since class and clinical was combined, the courses were worth a lot of college hours (6-7 each). Getting a good grade helped your GPA a lot, but getting a bad grade hurt your GPA a lot and As were hard to come by with our 7 point grading scale.

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

Letter grades ARE pass/fail when you really think about it. If only a 'C' or above passes, then 'A', 'B', and 'C' pass and 'D' and 'F' fail.