What happens when the majority fails?

lifelearningrn, BSN, RN · Sep 20, 2013

Our school uses a scan tron like system and it aggregates all the information from the exams, so if there is a question that say, 80% of the class misses, the teachers throw away that question. If there is a question where there are two answer that technically fit, and a large percent got one of the other, they'll let both answers count. Generally, when that many fail, quite a few questions will be thrown out and some people will move up in grades. Sometimes though, we will have an exam with only a couple As and Bs, a whole bunch of Cs and Ds, and some Fs. (Ds are failing too, obviously).

MilliePieRN · Sep 20, 2013

Thanks, I can't imagine letting all the grades stand.. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Guess we will find out next week.

krisiepoo · Sep 20, 2013

In our school, nothing happens. This was about the pass rate for our fluids/lytes and you essentially just have to suck it up, do a test remediation and hope you do better on the rest!

llg, PhD, RN · Sep 20, 2013

As a teacher, when my students do badly on an exam I go back and review everything. If there was something wrong with test (or particular question), I am willing to change it. But if the students SHOULD have done OK and didn't because of something they didn't do, I let the bad grades stand. For me, it's about fairness. I won't shortchange the few students who did a great job in the first place because most of their classmates slacked off. But if it there was something about the test that wasn't fair, that's a different matter.

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · Sep 20, 2013

I used to offer pre-test review sessions (on my own time) for as long as anybody wanted to stay, and had very few takers, and they were mostly the better students already. (Mmmm, there's a lesson in there.)

I would give the test and be besieged by people (usually the worst students) about getting test items "thrown out" because they didn't get them right. They were passionate, they were furious, they had worked out to the fourth decimal place (really) how many questions they'd have to get thrown out so they'd get the passing 74 grade. (Yep, 74. You could be wrong 26 times out of a hundred and still graduate. Sheesh.)

I would offer the post-test review for anyone to come and discuss the questions and learn more, as late as they wanted to stay (on my own time). Generally, the only people who came were the better students who wanted to get an 89 or 92 when they'd only gotten an 82. The poorer students were usually "too busy" to come. I love your faculty's idea of writing out why you got questions wrong for discussion later. You can all learn from each other, too.

But they would still be vocal at the next class session. So I pulled out stats: the most commonly-wrong answers chosen by the lower third of the class were almost always answered correctly by people in the top third of the class.

So we discussed those questions using class time. More argument. I finally said, "Ladies (they were all female), if you spent half the time studying med math, digoxin, potassium, and oxygenation that you put into calculating GPAs, you would have done a lot better on this exam." And then I told them about the analysis thing, the top third/bottom third difference in these questions. There was silence. I don't think they knew we could do that sort of analysis off of mark-sense forms.

Second year IS harder than first year. It has to be. Fully 1/3 of my class failed their first and second exams. Our test bank of 2000 questions were rated hard, medium, and easy. IIRC, for the first test I used 20% hard, 50% medium, and 30% easy. For the second exam I modified that to 5% hard, 40% medium, and 55% easy. My favorite line came from a student who, when I asked why I should pass people who failed basic questions, said, and I quote, "We paid a lot of money to come to this school." So I said, "Oh. I should pass people who have a 1 in 4 chance of getting something this basic wrong so they can be nurses and take care of somebody's mother in a hospital because they paid money? OK, then, just so we're clear." What a group. I had their peers apologizing to me, but it wasn't necessary-- most of them failed before they graduated anyway, long after I was gone.

The ironic part about all this grief was that I had a full-time job elsewhere but they had an instructor have a family crisis in late August and they needed someone for classroom instruction Tu-Th from 10-12, and I was an experienced CC/ADN teacher and was able to arrange my schedule to cover that. I love teaching, I love students, I worked really hard to get up to speed on their curriculum in the two weeks I had to prepare (remember, I had a full-time job already, and two young kids), and a lot of the students said I was the best teacher they'd had in the program.

But in answer to your question: If the analysis shows that the students who overall did better got a question right, and the ones who did worse got it wrong, it stands, as Ilg said.

MilliePieRN · Sep 20, 2013

Thanks so much for your detailed response. I had no idea there were test banks with those choices for teachers. I find it very interesting. I did good on the exam, but I do think it was realllly hard and I feel terrible for my classmates. I have no idea why I did any better they did. Some of them work a lot harder than I do (I do study but not a ridiculous amount. I don't stay at the school all day every day like some do). Our school did have a drop in their NCLEX pass rate this summer since the passing standard increased (from a 99% to 87%) and our class is quite a bit larger than usual. I was wondering if they didn't make the test harder on purpose to get rid of the weaker students to try to get their pass rate back up.

**NICU Guy, BSN, RN** · Sep 21, 2013

I took a test a couple of days ago. It was done on the computer (3 of the questions were short answer and fill in the blank. I don't know how the computer could grade that), the instructor for the class went to a conference out of state so we had another instructor proctor the test. We are in an ABSN program and 2/3- 3/4 of the students were on the dean's list last semester. Only 5 students got above a 75%, the highest was 84%. After about half the class finished the test, the instructor went out into the hall and called the class instructor to tell her that at that point only one person was getting above a 75%. Obviously she felt there was something seriously wrong. We will find out on Monday what will be done. It is hard to believe that out of 29 adult overachievers only 5 passed the test.

lifelearningrn, BSN, RN · Sep 21, 2013

I used to offer pre-test review sessions (on my own time) for as long as anybody wanted to stay, and had very few takers, and they were mostly the better students already. (Mmmm, there's a lesson in there.)

I would give the test and be besieged by people (usually the worst students) about getting test items "thrown out" because they didn't get them right. They were passionate, they were furious, they had worked out to the fourth decimal place (really) how many questions they'd have to get thrown out so they'd get the passing 74 grade. (Yep, 74. You could be wrong 26 times out of a hundred and still graduate. Sheesh.)

I would offer the post-test review for anyone to come and discuss the questions and learn more, as late as they wanted to stay (on my own time). Generally, the only people who came were the better students who wanted to get an 89 or 92 when they'd only gotten an 82. The poorer students were usually "too busy" to come. I love your faculty's idea of writing out why you got questions wrong for discussion later. You can all learn from each other, too.

But they would still be vocal at the next class session. So I pulled out stats: the most commonly-wrong answers chosen by the lower third of the class were almost always answered correctly by people in the top third of the class.

So we discussed those questions using class time. More argument. I finally said, "Ladies (they were all female), if you spent half the time studying med math, digoxin, potassium, and oxygenation that you put into calculating GPAs, you would have done a lot better on this exam." And then I told them about the analysis thing, the top third/bottom third difference in these questions. There was silence. I don't think they knew we could do that sort of analysis off of mark-sense forms.

Second year IS harder than first year. It has to be. Fully 1/3 of my class failed their first and second exams. Our test bank of 2000 questions were rated hard, medium, and easy. IIRC, for the first test I used 20% hard, 50% medium, and 30% easy. For the second exam I modified that to 5% hard, 40% medium, and 55% easy. My favorite line came from a student who, when I asked why I should pass people who failed basic questions, said, and I quote, "We paid a lot of money to come to this school." So I said, "Oh. I should pass people who have a 1 in 4 chance of getting something this basic wrong so they can be nurses and take care of somebody's mother in a hospital because they paid money? OK, then, just so we're clear." What a group. I had their peers apologizing to me, but it wasn't necessary-- most of them failed before they graduated anyway, long after I was gone.

The ironic part about all this grief was that I had a full-time job elsewhere but they had an instructor have a family crisis in late August and they needed someone for classroom instruction Tu-Th from 10-12, and I was an experienced CC/ADN teacher and was able to arrange my schedule to cover that. I love teaching, I love students, I worked really hard to get up to speed on their curriculum in the two weeks I had to prepare (remember, I had a full-time job already, and two young kids), and a lot of the students said I was the best teacher they'd had in the program.

But in answer to your question: If the analysis shows that the students who overall did better got a question right, and the ones who did worse got it wrong, it stands, as Ilg said.

Wow- I'd never, ever, ever, walk away from a PRE-test review!!!! I wish our school had instructors willing to do that!

nlynrob · Sep 22, 2013

At my school if more than 50% of the class gets a question wrong it is thrown out. If the class is split 50/50 (ish) on a question both answers are usually accepted. We always go over the exams later and it is explained why one answer was more right than another, but we're not punished for that as we're learning if a significant amount of students all thought the same way.

SunshineDaisy, ASN, RN · Sep 22, 2013

Depending on what instructor it is. Most will throw questions out if a majority of students missed that question. If the teachers write their tests and the question was awful they will usually throw it out as well.

FDW630 · Sep 22, 2013

Our professors write their own exam questions so depending on the professor, if it is a high miss question that most of the students chose the same wrong answer for, they will review it and usually toss it. If it is a somewhat high miss question and they review it and decide the wrong answers were all over the place, they leave it as is. They're pretty fair about it, IMO.