What's up with all the 'failed NCLEX' posts?

audreysmagic, RN · Mar 30, 2016

Full disclosure - I passed the NCLEX on #78 in 2004, so, yeah, I have no idea what it's like these days. And I'm not even going to pretend I'm sad to have missed the paper-and-pencil two day boards. (Though my mother, also an RN, was sure to fill me in on every detail of the experience so it's like I was almost there. :cheeky: ) I don't know if it does it quite the same now, but the test back then had a system where each question in a category would get progressively harder until it was satisfied you were competent in that category. If you answered wrong, you got an easier question for the next one. My school was VERY into NCLEX prep the final semester, and I remembered hearing over and over that "if it's satisfied you passed it will end, but it will also do the same if you have failed so badly more questions wouldn't help." With my test anxiety, guess which one I focused on! :geek:

I was lucky enough to get a GN job very quickly at a pediatric office I LOVED, so when I went to take the test, there was a lot of pressure to get it right the first time, because the next session wouldn't be til after my 90 days was up. So I go, and, well, as Matilda the musical says, "The trick started well." Pediatric questions up first! PEDIATRIC QUESTIONS ABOUT OFFICE TRIAGE. I was feeling good. Then more general stuff, then more specialty stuff, then...nephrology. My weakest subject in school. And they're getting hard as hell. By the last question, I guessed. Then a super easy question. Then, boom, #78, thanks for playing and you're done. I was CONVINCED I'd failed. I cried in the bathroom, put on a brave face, and started making private plans about what the heck to do with my life now. It was a great ride. (At the time, I knew nothing of PVTs. Not even sure if it was available. We were told to just keep checking the BON site for our license status.) Daily, I checked. "Pending."

A week later, my license came in the mail. Due to a holiday, the BON site updated the next day. Needless to say, I couldn't be that upset about the delay because I had a piece of paper in my hand with my name and RN number on it! Two weeks later, Pearson sent me notification that I'd passed. :-P

This is all pretty much to say, I have no idea HOW people cope with taking it multiple times, but I know my nerves would never have survived the four week wait, OMG. I would have been a little frayed ball of raw nerves. I do owe a lot of my "aced it" passing to, well, of course myself, for knowing the material, but also my school's final-semester prep. I don't believe in the entire program teaching to the test, either, but we had a specific class in final semester devoted to "the realities of nursing" with conflict management stuff, more ethics, and a ton of NCLEX focus. (Mine was an AAS community college program, for the record.)

DEE S. · Mar 30, 2016

i definitely agree the failures are coming from the for profit schools that charge 3x the amount in tuition. the good news is if they continue to have increased low nyclex pass rates they will loose their accreditation.

totrn1 · Mar 31, 2016

And this pretty much makes the argument for no more than 3 attempts to take the NCLEX

totrn1 · Mar 31, 2016

As long as you pass how many times you testes shouldn't matter although I do think that after failing more than 3 times its a good idea to remediate.

:eek: And this pretty much makes the argument for no more than 3 attempts to take the NCLEX

kbrn2002, ADN, RN · Mar 31, 2016

At first I thought it was mostly because people are much more likely to post about failing and looking for study advice for the next attempt, then I looked at the overall pass rate and it is a lot lower than I though it would be. The stats are provided by NCSBN, the governing body of the NCLEX for both RN and PN: https://www.ncsbn.org/Table_of_Pass_Rates_2015_(3).pdf

kbrn2002, ADN, RN · Mar 31, 2016

Canada might be contributing to the fail chatter.
Since we converted fully in 2015 & didn't teach to the test, our first time pass rate is
Huge crisis in the programs & the national students' association is raising a stink over the only 3 attempts rules.

You have a point there. In the table for pass rates from 2015 that I linked in another post I notice that the pass rate for Internationally educated [which I assume includes Canada] first time test takers is 31.67% for RN and 46.61% for PN. These do seem like really low numbers.

elkpark · Mar 31, 2016

You have a point there. In the table for pass rates from 2015 that I linked in another post I notice that the pass rate for Internationally educated [which I assume includes Canada] first time test takers is 31.67% for RN and 46.61% for PN. These do seem like really low numbers.

Unless the NCSBN has recently changed how it tabulates and reports scores, "internationally educated" refers to US NCLEX takers educated outside the US, and that group would not include Canadian educated individuals taking the NCLEX in Canada. I doubt that the NCSBN (National Council of State Boards of Nursing) is suddenly including Canadian results in its calculations of NCLEX scores within the US. But I could be wrong about that. Internationally educated individuals have always done a lot worse on the (US) NCLEX, since the test is designed to reflect US nursing practice and many international candidates were educated in countries with different models of nursing education and practice.

kbrn2002, ADN, RN · Mar 31, 2016

Unless the NCSBN has recently changed how it tabulates and reports scores, "internationally educated" refers to US NCLEX takers educated outside the US, and that group would not include Canadian educated individuals taking the NCLEX in Canada. I doubt that the NCSBN (National Council of State Boards of Nursing) is suddenly including Canadian results in its calculations of NCLEX scores within the US. But I could be wrong about that. Internationally educated individuals have always done a lot worse on the (US) NCLEX, since the test is designed to reflect US nursing practice and many international candidates were educated in countries with different models of nursing education and practice.

Good point. I do believe that only the US and Canada use the NCLEX so I figured Canada had to be lumped in the foreign educated students catagory but I can see the point that since they use the test as criteria to practice within their own nation it's not foreign for them at all. Too bad the NCSBN didn't include a separate table for Canadian pass rates as now I am really curious as to what they were for 2015, especially since I believe it's the first year the NCLEX was used.

ETA: Googled this and found a Canadian table that covers the first half of the year anyway. Pass rates were not as high as US, but not as abysmal as some are reporting. Overall Canadian pass rate from Jan-Jun was 70.6% compared to 78.3% for US nurses. Here's the link for anyone interested: http://www.ccrnr.ca/assets/main-report-canadian-nclex-rn-pass-rate-analysis-q1-q2-2015.pdf

JustBeachyNurse, LPN · Mar 31, 2016

You have a point there. In the table for pass rates from 2015 that I linked in another post I notice that the pass rate for Internationally educated [which I assume includes Canada] first time test takers is 31.67% for RN and 46.61% for PN. These do seem like really low numbers.

It may include Canada as their rates are higher but IENs were ~20% for RN passing first attempt

RNdynamic · Mar 31, 2016

I think its due to a lot of people going to school at for profit schools, diploma mills, and affirmative action mills...

I know tons of people on this website go to school for nursing in the grand canyon, where nursing school is for profit.

Nursemiriben, LPN, EMT-P · Mar 31, 2016

Before I graduated we took an online seminar class to help study for the nclex. It was nationwide so people from all over the country were in there. In the chat room there were a handful of people who had failed 6+ times and I couldn't believe it. Is nursing just not for these people? Are some schools that awful? If they're that under educated how the heck did they graduate, !

apalehorse · Apr 1, 2016

I think its due to a lot of people going to school at for profit schools, diploma mills, and affirmative action mills...

that's an absurd claim re: "affirmative action mills." do you have anything to back that up? robert wood johnson, hrsa and aacn say white nonhispanic women are the majority of the rn workforce. the only other group that is statistically over represented are asian women. what group do you think are benefiting from these "affirmative action mills."