NotTenured

I have taught in more that one nursing education institution and with a variety of student populations. My experience everywhere has been that nursing students tend to be somewhat harsh and critical evaluators of faculty, as opposed to students from other majors. I have some theories about this, primarily I think we tend to admit students who are less well prepared academically than other majors and then proceed to expect them to perform well in an intense, rigorous, stressful program of study. Subsequently, students project their frustrations and anger onto faculty at end-of-term evaluation time. I have posted here to ask if anyone else has made note of this phenomenon and what opinions are. As a member of our faculty from another department said: "those nurses are a hard-sell, I feel like I'm in the cross-hairs all the time". The Dean of our college has pointed to the less-than-average numbers and commented on the data in regard to using it for decision-making about the viability of our program. Comments??