Assessment Grant Report
Mid-curricular evaluation tool – HESI

Department: Nursing
Name of Grant: Mid curricular Assessment
Patricia Henry

We purchased a custom made mid-curricular evaluation tool from the HESI company (they have been bought by the Mosby – Elsivier Co.).  Faculty submitted syllabi and outlines to the test developers, and an IUSB Junior Level exam was constructed.
All students enrolled in the sixth semester of the IUSB Nursing Program completed the test on-line. Past grades earned in didactic nursing courses for which syllabi and outlines were submitted, were used as a tool for convergent validity.

Results: A detailed report was shared with the faculty. Although the majority of students did not achieve as high a score on the test as we expected, there were no obvious areas of concern that arose out of the data.

The delivery of the exam by internet resulted in at least two students being repeatedly kicked out of the test, and having to start the exam over.  It was obvious that some students took this testing seriously, while others did not. We had not linked success on this test to a reward or penalty for performance.

The results were not very helpful in our assessment efforts. However, in the future we will seriously consider linking exams used for assessment to some consequences to assure uniform effort of the part of students.

When this group of students are close to graduation and take the exit assessment exam we plan to look at the relationship between the mid-curricular exam and the assessment exam, overall grade point average and success on NCLEX-RN.

The cost of the exam is 30$ + per student, which makes the cost of the test high, especially considering we have no data to support using it with future classes. We are in the midst of curricular change (brought forward at the end of last year as a possibility) and therefore, we are unlikely to use this exam in the future.

However, we did learn that some reward for good performance needs to be linked to this type of assessment tool for it to be successful.

Submitted, Patricia R. Henry.

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