Hesi Exit Test

Nursing Students HESI

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Hello fellow educators....I am dealing with a dilema which I have no control over as I am a staff member, not administration, but it is just eating away at my concious. My community college uses the HESI exit exam for the ADN and LVN programs. Regardless of how good your GPA is, clinical performance and so on....along April or so, you have to pass a "exit exam" with a score of 850 or better in order to "Walk with your diploma". If you fail to pass the test you are allowed to take it again. If you fail again, you are out. Don't pass go, don't collect you monopoly money!!!! The problem I have with it, and I am not alone in this, IS>>> a couple of students each year per program, fails the HESI, despite being quality nursing students and according to the census of most instructors would pass the NCLEX with no problems. Other schools in our area use the HESi,but as a tool to help the students focus on their areas of weakness. I feel we should not leave it up to a third party vendor to make or break these kids, who have put their lives on hold, pawned everything they own, just to be one of us.

Am I normal to feel this way? I have discussed it with other staff and told it is the policy of the college network, DON'T go there...etc.

Your viewpoints would be appreciated. I just want my students to all have a shot at NCLEX after proving themselves to me, not a private vendor.

ERDude

The exit exam practice is being increasingly questioned in nursing education. What happens is students who may actually pass the NCLEX are never given the chance to take it because of a HESI (or another exit exam) score.

HESI is good at predicting NCLEX success because it sets the pass score so high. HESI is NOT good at predicting NCLEX failure. A majority of the students who do not attain an 850 who are allowed to take NCLEX actually PASS.

This is documented in the August 2006 issue of Nurse Educator

Schools have this crazy policy because they want to have a good pass rate. So if the students have even a small chance of failing the school prevents them from taking the test and protects their pass rate.

It is not fair to the students to let them spend their time, money, and hard work for two to four years and then deny them the opportunity to fulfill their dream of being a nurse. It is the school's responsibility to prepare the students throughout their nursing program to succeed on the NCLEX.

Several states are looking into this practice. New York State has already banned it.

There is a lot of money to be made by the testing companies (more than 247,000 took NCLEX RN and PN in 2006). Profit seems to be fueling this practice.

Perhaps the students who were denied graduation should get together and seek legal advice, or at least register a complaint with your state board of nursing or NLNAC.

Can you give the exact reference.

I am looking in this journal and I would like to quote it - but I need the name of the article, or authors.

thanks.

Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

I am opposed to this also. I understand that schools have to have a high rate of graduates passing NCLEX in order to maintain accreditation, but this puts an undue burden on the student. In my opinion the tests should be used to evaluate the curriculum or the instructors, not the students. If I paid for my course and passed it then I would expect to graduate! I am on the advisory board for two nursing schools, one of which uses HESI in the same manner. I make sure my comments are in the minutes, but it falls on deaf ears. Someone has convinced Admin that this test is preferable to maintaining quality within the classroom.

Specializes in Educator/ICU/ER.

We educators hear you, BUT!! The computerized exit exam is very much like the NCLEX-RN. If you are successful, you will have a better chance at passing and not have to pay another $300-400 to repeat the NCLEX-RN. We told our students in August about the exit exam and they did not really hear us until April! Then it was pure panic. They all passed and we are looking forward to their NCLEX pass rates!

Relax, use all of the CD's and helps you can to get better at computerized exam. Take care!

Specializes in ER, ICU, Education.

I think the use of HESI and other standardized examinations for uses other than to evaluate student areas that may need reinforcement is a bit abusive, to be honest. We use ATI and were specifically advised by that company not to use the tests in such a manner, but instead to evaluate course content and student need for remediation. It should not be an obstacle to prevent an otherwise qualified student from taking the NCLEX or graduating. This strategy seems designed only to give an artificially inflated pass rate for the school. If I were a student, I would not attend such as school. I agree with the posting about seeking legal counsel in such a situation.

According to the HESI website, the test is also made to put the school's curriculum to the test, to see if it's truely preparing the students for the boards.

I myself came from a nursing school where 60% of the students passed the HESI and were able to graduate, and we had an 850 point cutoff. If our cutoff was 900 or even 950 there would've been maybe 12 girls at pinning.

I believe that if less than half the students can pass this Do-Or-Die test, doesn't that mean that the SCHOOL isn't doing it's job?

Is anyone from a nursing school that ties your HESI score to a grade in a specific class? In mine, we have a 10-credit hour MedSurg class that if you fail the HESI 3 times, you get a 10 credit F added to your transcripts. To reapply to the program, you have to also re-take all the 1st Semester final exams. Once in, they have to retake all the 2nd semester classes + clinicals, then re-take the HESI and you get only one shot. If you fail, you can never reapply for the program.

Nice, huh?

Specializes in ER.

We were required to take the EXIT HESI and we had 2 times to take it. Throughout our 2 years at my school after every rotation we would have a hesi and what ever we got on that would count for 5% of our grade. If we didn't pass the exit hesi on the 2nd time I believe the students were required to do 6 weeks remediation , which was pretty much NCLEX questions, but they let them Graduate, THANK GOD! Hesi just gives the school you are going to reassurance that they did their job and you are ready to sit for boards, I mean would you want to go to a school whose pass rate is not high? I wouldn't! So the HESI test didn't really bother me although it was extra stress that I didn't need at the end of the year!

Hesi just gives the school you are going to reassurance that they did their job and you are ready to sit for boards, I mean would you want to go to a school whose pass rate is not high? I wouldn't!

As a matter of fact...the HESI has another purpose, according to their own web site. It's other purpose is to make sure that schools are actually teaching a proper curriculum. How many of us were missing questions on the HESI that were about subject matter we NEVER went over in school? Plenty. How many of us had to use SAT-type answer elimination strategies to even muster a passing grade? Again, many.

I believe schools should be ranked by their HESI pass rate!!!!! I think we'd see a massive change in the curriculum and the quality of the classes. If they're ranked by pass rate of the NCLEX and only graduate students who'll pass, according to the HESI model, a school can legally just have their students play kickball for 2 years, graduate just 1 student who passes the HESI, and STILL CLAIM A 100% PASS RATE and pocket the other 80+ student's tuition with impunity.

My school gives us 3 times to pass with a 900 or we don't graduate. I just took it for the 2nd time and can't seem to get out of the 700's. They just made it a graduation requirement after I was already in my 3rd level. They made us sign a paper saying that we understood and if we didn't sign, we had to leave class immediately. My 1st test was 2 weeks into the semester, so we hadn't even been taught all the material. Now, I just took the 2nd one without all the material being taught, again. Our instructor does everything she can to intimidate us & has told us that if we go to the dean or complain to state board about anything that it WILL get back to her and we WILL be the ones to suffer. Do they go through state board to approve of the Hesi? And- about us all coming together to fight this with an attorney, does it matter that we all signed that paper? I'm sure that is out of the question anyway because if she thought we were fighting it, she would find some other way to make sure we don't pass.

Also- I read the Kaplan book for test taking (twice) and read all the Hesi hints in the NCLEX study guide. I'm thinking it may have hurt me because I was trying to answer every question using the tips, instead of going with what I know. The only thing left that I know to do is answer question after question- all this while trying to study for my 4th test & final exam. :confused:

Don't let the staff intimidate you. When it comes down to it, they're all very much accountable for the program they run, and if what they're saying was truely policy, it'd be in writing somewhere. They are just scared for their jobs because if too many students fail, the program is in for disciplinary action itself!

As for the HESI...don't forget to relax and trust yourself. There is no reason to believe that all your work will be for nothing if you don't get through without a bump. You wouldn't have even gotten this far if you were not nursing material!

Well im one Student who managed to keep a GPA of 3.4 and a B plus but failed Hesi because my school got a new chair who decided to raise the passing score from a 850 to a 1000 so as to help the school to become fully accredited I got a 815, 945 ,866 I have perfect attendence and never but once missed clinicals but that did not mattered because now I have to start all over again so who wins and the program was very costly $20000 and I am not rich but now I have no diploma actually it is 15 of us so who is going to be my advocate i am upset and hurt no trrue nurse would do something like this to a new nurse to be

Woah. Tell you what,... If your school requires a score of 1000, and more than half of the class still manages to pass (WITHOUT spending hundreds of dollars on outside tutoring) , what can I say, sounds like the kind of school I wish I went to!

Like I said in a previous post, if the cutoff at my school was even 950, all the girls who graduated would've all fit in the back seat of a hatchback car. :no:

When the nursing boards catch on that the do-or-die HESI policy in nursing schools is producing artifical competancy at huge expense to the students, they will change their ranking system.

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