Appendix F: Nursing Students Exam Protocol

General Information 

• All books, papers, pocketbooks, PDA’s etc. must be cleared.
• After completion of exam, student may leave exam room but cannot reenter until the monitor has collected all exams.
• Students may step out of an exam for emergencies only. Visitors will be asked to wait; messages will be placed in the student's mailbox.

Canvas Checklist

Exams

• Mute grades in gradebook and in the settings section of the exam (restrict student result view)
• Verify there is no grammar, sentence structure, or misspelled words
• Verify NCSBN approved words are bolded
  • Best
  • Most
  • Essential
  • First
  • Priority
  • Immediately
  • Highest
  • Initial
  • Next
  • Refute
  • Increased
  • Decreased
  • Support

(SELECT ALL THAT APPLY)

• Exams should be listed due 15 minutes before the actual exam start time (test actually starts at 0900 but will make it due for students at 0845). The faculty will not provide the student access code for the exam until the actual start of the exam. This will prevent any computer issues from occurring in the exam.
• The due date and open window are correct
  1. The due date should be the time the exam starts, not when the exam will close.
  2. Note: This will need to be altered for students with accommodations.
     1. For students with accommodations, verify exam times are extended and there is a separate test time window for those students.

Note: For students with accommodations, verify exam times are extended and there is a separate test time window for those students.

• In the settings tab (located in each exam) the following has been selected,
  • Shuffle answers
  • One question at a time
  • Require an access code and type in what the access code will be for students
  • Time limit: 1.5 minutes per test question
  • Restrict student view

Grades may only be released once the test writing committee and the instructor have viewed the exam’s statistics.

• Verify the correct answers have been selected
• For select all that apply questions: select “exact match”
• Create a test/item bank for your exam questions
• The HESI exam should be in the same assignment category as regular exams and weigh as much as the final (100 points)
• Students are not to copy exams. This includes taking pictures, video recording, writing information down.
• Provide an announcement or assignment page for each exam review for the semester.
  One exam review for each exam
  Students may not see their exams
  1. Students and faculty must follow the standards described in the syllabus for exam reviews

General Canvas

• Verify the adaptive quizzing modules are set up
• Assignment due dates will be due on Sunday; however, in the first four weeks, the course assignments will be due during module four to allow for student textbooks to arrive.
• Check the Respondus0 lockdown browser and verify each exam is selected for the lockdown browser
• erify the weight of assignments is consistent with the syllabus.
• Hide grade distribution. Go to settings, click more options, click hide mark distribution graphs from students, and click save.
• Check the links in the course to determine if they are active or broken
• Upload PowerPoint presentations or resources to the lecture page
• Verify each module has an overview page and summary page, and there are module objectives listed that link to the course objectives
• If taking attendance (good idea too) verify the attendance assignment is located in a non-weighted assignment. Sometimes the attendance assignment populates in a weighted assignment like exams or adaptive quizzing. This should be verified after collecting the student’s attendance in the first class.
• Publish all necessary assignments and pages in the modules tab
• Verify all resources, assignments, and pages are in the correct order on the modules tab (this should mirror the order of the module overview pages).
• Verify there is the correct number of modules in the course for the number of weeks the course is offered.
• Add assignment due dates
• Mute assignments in the gradebook
• Crosslink appropriate courses (if teaching two sections of the same course, crosslink them)
• Courses may only be published the Sunday before the start of the term/semester
• Verify that all assignments have been published or that students cannot view the assignment.
• Use the following resources to learn how to build your exams.

Examination Criteria

Nursing Examination Protocol is based on NCLEX Examination Candidate Rules

• All books, papers, pocketbooks, cell phones etc., must be left in a designated area. Students are encouraged to secure belongings, especially valuables, in their car; the college is not responsible for lost or stolen items.
• Students are encouraged to take care of physical needs prior to the exam.
• After completion of exam, student may leave exam room but cannot reenter until the monitor has collected all exams.
• During an exam, the proctor will clarify typographical errors, not questions related to the content.
• Students who arrive after the start of the exam or who are absent from the exam will follow the missed exam policy located in the course syllabus. Exceptions to this rule may be reviewed by the Dean or designee.
• Pencils, paper, calculators, highlighters, earplugs, and any other items needed for testing will be provided by the exam proctor.
• No food or beverages (other than water) are allowed in the testing area.
• Exams will have a question in a variety of formats for students to answer.

Testing Policy

Nursing students are required to earn a 74% testing average before any other weighted assessments are factored into their grade. A student who does not achieve a 74% average on examinations will fail the course, regardless of other assessment grades.

Missed Exam Policy

General Exam Information

• The MCHP nursing department does not allow makeup examinations for students who are late or absent from an exam except for the HESI examination.
• The policy defines examinations as regularly scheduled assessments.
• The policy designates the HESI exams as the final exam.
• Regularly scheduled examinations have a separate grading system from the HESI examinations.
• The HESI exam has a proprietary conversion system to convert earned points into percentages, i.e., 850 points = 74%.

Absence from Regularly Scheduled Course Examination

• Students must notify the course faculty of absences before the start of the exam (following the instructions provided in the syllabus for contacting faculty).
• Examinations begin at the scheduled time. Students who arrive late will be marked absent and will not be permitted to take the examination. Note: Students are required to follow the standard procedure for missing an examination, regardless of the reason for their absence.
• If a student misses a regularly scheduled exam for any reason (not HESI), their HESI grade will count for the missed exam and the HESI grade. For example, a student is absent from the second examination. There is no opportunity to make up the second examination, but the student earns 74% on the HESI exam. Therefore, the grade for the HESI and second examination is 74%.
• Students who miss more than one regularly scheduled exam will earn a grade of zero (0).
• Students who do not miss regularly scheduled exams will have their lowest regularly scheduled exam grade replaced with their grade on the HESI exam. However, the original score will remain if the HESI exam grade is lower than the regularly scheduled exam grade.

Absences from the Course HESI (Final Exam)

• Students will complete two HESI exams during the semester. However, students who obtain a conversion score of 74% or higher to create a passing grade in the course and testing average are exempt from completing the second HESI exam.
• Students are required to complete the HESI examination.
• No matter the reason, students who miss or are late to the HESI examination will receive a ten (10) - point deduction from the conversion score.
• Examinations begin at the scheduled time. Students who arrive late are marked as absent and will not be permitted to take the examination.
• Students absent or late to the HESI exam must complete the exam within five (5) business days of the exam date and time of the missed HESI examination, or the earned grade is zero (0).

Test Protocol for the Nursing Department

Newly hired nursing faculty are not allowed to write or change test questions in the courses during the first year of their start date (unless approved by the Dean or Assistant Dean). After the first year of hire, the nursing faculty must follow the criteria below for writing or changing test questions.

Nursing faculty will follow the following test protocol for every examination, test, or quiz in the prelicensure nursing programs.

Nursing students must obtain a 74% testing average before any other assessments weigh into their cumulative grade. Students who do not earn a 74% average on examinations will fail the course, regardless of other assessment grades. Students must earn a 74% accumulation average on all course assignments to pass the course.

Examination Criteria

Nursing faculty must implement the following requirements in each examination, test, or quiz in the prelicensure nursing programs.

• Examinations (exam) must be closed book.
• Faculty must utilize the learning management system and the lockdown browser to implement nursing exams.
• Exam questions are to be based on the NCLEX-RN and NCLEX-PN blueprint, clinical judgment theoretical model, and nursing process: See Appendix One.
• The level of difficulty for each exam question is based on the course objectives (Bloom’s Taxonomy), and the progression of the student's education.
  • First semester: knowledge and comprehension questions.
  • Second semester: comprehension and application questions.
  • Third semester: application and analytical questions.
  • Fourth semester: application and analytical questions.
• Exam questions are 1.5 minutes per question.
  • 50 questions = 75 minutes
  • 100 questions = 150 minutes
• Select all that apply (SATA) and NextGeneration NCLEX (NGN) questions that should be included on each examination. The amount of the SATA/NGN questions ranges depending on the semester the student is in. (First semester 10%-20%, second semester 20%-30%, third semester 30%-40%, and fourth semester 40%).
  • SATA questions are not to receive partial points.
  • SATA questions must have a minimum of five options, but no more than ten options.
  • NGN questions, partial points may be awarded.
• For each 50-point exam, the final examination comprises 100 points.
• Recommendations: a minimum of one case study (each case study will have a total of six questions, one point for each question), and a minimum of three case study questions (each case study will have a total of six questions, one point for each question) for the final exam.
• Exam question format is to be multiple-choice, multiple response/answers, bowtie, trend, cloze, highlight table or hotspot (see the following hyperlink for more acceptable forms of exam question formats NGN Item Types - Elsevier Education).
• An exam review should occur before and after each examination with the Dean or Assistant Dean.
• Faculty are to write their own exam questions and not to use questions from a publisher or a non-MCHP-produced exam bank.
• There are no bonus points/questions awarded on exams.
• Faculty must mute exams via the grade book in the learning management system. Once a final review occurs after students complete the exam, the faculty can release grades.
• Exam questions should be evenly selected based on lecture content or the textbook.
• Final examinations will be evenly distributed, except content that has not previously been tested on will be a greater distribution.
• Students cannot write their own questions for examinations.
• The following words must be bolded for each exam: best, most, essential, first, priority, immediately, highest, initial, next, refute, increase, decrease, and support. “Select all that apply” should be bolded, in all capitals, and in parenthesis. Example: (SELECT ALL THAT APPLY)

Exam Reviews

Tests administered within a nursing course at MCHP are reviewed by the course instructor and members of the test review committee. The course instructor and test review committee review each test question's statistical significance and determine the test question's validity. Only after a test review and the process below has occurred will test grades be published for the student’s view.

Test grades will not be released for students to view until the course instructor and members of the test review committee review the test and the test’s statistics.

No more than 10% of test questions will be nullified or multiple answers accepted unless authorized by the Dean or Assistant Dean of Nursing.

Questions that fall between the difficulty index of 0.3 and 0.8 are acceptable to test questions and are not subject to adjustment, unless authorized by the Dean.

Test Review Process

Step 1: Each question is reviewed for the percentage of how many students in the class answered correctly. Questions in which 30% or less of students answered correctly is highlighted for review.

Step 2: Each question’s point biserial number is reviewed, if the number falls below 0.29, the question is highlighted for review.

Step 3: Each of the questions highlighted in steps 1 and 2 will be reviewed by the course instructor and the test review committee members.

Step 4: The faculty and members of the test committee will review each question based on the below criteria and either accept the test question as is, nullify, or accept multiple answers for a question. If the question is nullified, students will be given full credit for the question. Additional points will not be awarded to students who selected a nullified question’s correct answer(s).