Returning to Campus-COVID-19 Question

[FutureNurseChloe]

I am interested to know how other school’s administration is handling things. The program I am in switched to online classes and online exams when the pandemic started. It is important to note that we are a Private University. Our previous exams were 50 questions and we were allotted 1.5 mins per question and had the ability to flag questions and go back. Since being online, they changed our exam format to 25 questions (still 1.5 mins per question) and are giving us 50 minutes for the whole exam, but we can no longer go back or flag questions.

So, if you don’t know the answer to a question, you have to guess and move forward and not waste too much time or you run the risk of running out of time. They claim that they made this change to better prepare us for the NCLEX however, my cohort and I think it’s unfair to suddenly change the exam format, since we were never tested in this format from day one.

Today they informed us (keep in mind we are halfway through this semester) that although they previously communicated that the entire Summer term would be fully online, we will now have to go back to campus “in person” to take our final exam, even though our classes are still being taught online for the reminder of the Summer semester. Interested to know what other Universities are doing to see if there is any merit to what they are saying.

[FutureNPBri, CNA, EMT-P]

The school that I attend (private school as well) they’re allowing us to take the lecture finals online and they’re also giving us the option to take HESI exam online at home as long as have Proctor U set up or at school with limited students inside of the campus at once. They’ve implemented some things with testing that I didn’t like but a lot of students including myself spoke to the school president about the issues at hand and he made necessary changes to make sure everything could run smoothly for all students and this included the time given to us for each question. I would be my concerns to your campus president if possible and see if anything can be done. Good luck!

[FutureNurseChloe]

Thank you for your reply @FutureNPBri I really appreciate it. Good luck to you as well.

[StudentRN56, BSN, RN]

My school allowed us to go back to questions - sometimes even showed us the entire test - for the first two terms (or maybe just the first). Then they set it up so it was NCLEX style - once you answer it, you move onto the next one and can't go back. But, they told us up front that they were going to do that to get us used to that style of testing.

As for taking the final in person, we are taking our final this term online through the respondus secured browser - where you take video of your area and all that. We've taken all our exams this term through Respondus. For Summer term, they are planning on having us come into the school in smaller lab groups (8-9 people) to work on skills and maybe do some sims.