WANTED: Instructor and Student Perspectives on ATI in the Classroom

[la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN]

Hi all,

In my nursing program we implement the ATI proctored exams and content mastery modules to help prepare us for NCLEX. Personally, I LOVE ATI. It has helped not only in my studies but I have also scored 3s on every proctored exam excluding the very 1st one (when I had no idea what exactly it was I was supposed to be doing with ATI). However, it seems that a lot of students in cohorts ahead and behind me are struggling with a discrepancy between what they are taught in theory and what results they get on proctored exams (the instructors are also beginning to take notice as well).

I was curious what everyone's experience has been with ATI and if there has been a general disconnect between ATI and lecture material. Also, I would love to know, especially from the instructors, what the thought is regarding students taking initiative and teaching themselves the material as a supplement to lectures. It seems like a general issue with a lot of instructors just reading verbatim from powerpoints and that some students are put off with the idea they may have to just teach themselves a little bit.

Finally, I'm curious as to how confident people who took ATI were going into the NCLEX. The current disparity in my program is freaking a lot of people out and I feel that it may be unnecessarily so.

Thanks!

[Belle2013]

I graduated in 2013 and ATI was a part of our program including having to pass the final exam to graduate. It was nothing like the NCLEX and I don't think prepares you at all. It was more memorization than critical thinking. The nclex is nothing but critical thinking and the right answer doesn't jump out at you like the ATI. That's my opinion....

[ixchel]

Some of the questions had the absolute most ridiculous answer choices, and content did not always reflect current evidence based practice.

[Cremebrulee, BSN, EMT-B]

I'm not a huge fan of ATI, and honestly I think it's a rip off for the $800 -$1000 we are obligated to pay for during our total time in school (about 200-250 or so per semester). The instructional videos are nice and some of the pharmacology info is helpful, but that's about as good as it's done for me. Especially because the only real practice exams we can work with are the ones that are released to us by the school. When I study for tests, I like to practice a TON of questions and read every rationale which ATI just hasn't offered in my case.

[RookieRoo]

I like ATI for the NCLEX-style review questions, and that is it. I do NOT like the ATI proctored tests, for the simple reason that I don't feel they reflect the relevant material. For instance, after we took our pharm ATI, our pharm professor and a discussion where she came in and told us that she did not think the ATI test on this subject reflected the important/overarching concepts at all. Further, some questions are poorly worded and can make it hard to find the correct answer (or, most correct answer) even when one knows the material.

[SunnyTrailRunner]

I hate ATI. Sometimes it's helpful, but it is mostly a waste of time. In our program there is a running joke. We have to know how the world works in the NCLEX hospital, real hospital, and the ATI hospital. Usually the three are very different and often contradict each other. Half time, the instructors say "I know ATI says this, but do this..." It is a huge waste of $$

[BusiestBSN]

I hate ATI.

[mikey89]

Hey I just took my NCLEX today and sadly the trick took me to my credit cared screen, however. ATI questions are nothing close to what I saw. I blew through all my ATI practice tests and scored pretty high in school on the mandatory proctored exams. The NCLEX is so vastly different from any practice test I have seen thus far, and I feel that any practice questions I took from ATI were a waste of my time. However it did help in RN school for a "Cliff Notes" reference material when you could not read the entire chapters for the week.

[la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN]

I agree that ATI is a good reference for tacking material when at times there just isn't enough time to get into the nitty-gritty of a lot of things. I wonder, then, what I can tell students (I am in charge of running the student-faculty forums where students can bring their problems up to faculty) when I know the faculty are happy with the reported results that the ATI rep brings. I know that some material in ATI is straight-up lunacy. I know some of the things in my Saunders review book are loons, too. I know my textbooks are sadly out of date (I mean, some references for a 2014 textbook only are current to 2008???). There's a lot of stuff to porifice through. I think a lot of it is panic from tests in theory resulting in As but large portions of the cohorts are getting 1s on proctored exams. Is the general idea, then, that ATI does not provide even at least a good practice for critical thinking skills?

[scaredsilly, BSN, RN]

Hated ATI! I felt it did nothing to help prepare for NCLEX. Apparently my school agreed, they stopped using it and switched to Kaplan

[Graduatenurse14]

I hate ATI too. Big waste of $$$. There are mistakes in their materials and they do not give the money back/take NCLEX prep portion again like Kaplan does. They put their money where their mouth is.

[CluelessNewbie]

I graduated in December and I though ATI was great, although that seems to put me in the minority here. I liked the paper review books and used them to "preview" topics before I started the assigned reading in the textbooks. I found that gave me a decent overview and helped prepare me for lecture. I also used the ATI books to review just before exams.

When I took the NCLEX in February, I thought it was extremely similar to the ATI proctored exams, and I believe haven taken so many of them was beneficial.