Institutions record 100% pass rate for nursing test

In Nebraska, where the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated a statewide nursing shortage, the pass rate also rose with the new iteration of the licensing test, according to Theresa Delahoyde, the chair of the Nebraska Board of Nursing.

The official results for each of the nine institutions of higher education that offer nursing will be available at the of January 2024, but a trio of Lincoln-area nursing schools has already announced they recorded a 100% first-time pass rate.

Bryan College of Health Sciences, Nebraska Wesleyan University and Union College reported the entire cohort of nursing students that graduated in the spring successfully cleared the new National Council of Licensing Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN) in May.

The results are something nursing instructors say should engender confidence in the health care systems that will hire those newly minted nurses as well as patients who will be cared for by them.

"All of the schools have been working very hard at this," said Delahoyde, who is also the dean of undergraduate nursing at Bryan. "We don't take this for granted at all."

The new version of NCLEX, a standardized test used for decades to measure a candidate nurse's knowledge base and skill set, was introduced after more than a decade in research and development as the expectations of nurses has become more complex.

Introduced in April, the Next Generation NCLEX seeks to measure nurses' critical thinking and decision-making when delivering patient care by asking them to work through patient charts and synthesize several pieces of information to determine whether or not a patient is on the mend.

"This is more true to what they're seeing in real life in the clinical setting," Delahoyde said.

The change in NCLEX's led to changes in the curriculum at Bryan, which had 47 students pass the exam on their first attempt this year, as well as Nebraska Wesleyan and Union as they sought to help prepare students for the exam.

Brittney Fritzinger, the department chair for nursing at Nebraska Wesleyan, which has offered a bachelor's of science in nursing since 2015, said the Next Generation NCLEX was used as a blueprint as instructors worked one-on-one with students to close any gaps in their learning.

"Having these results helps build our confidence that we are able to prepare competent graduates," Fritzinger said, particularly in a cohort of 22 students that was forced to go to remote learning during the pandemic.

"Initially, we were a little bit concerned because we lost that face-to-face interaction, but it's encouraging for the cohorts moving forward that it can be done," she added.

Union College has previously achieved a 100% first-time pass rate under the old version of the test, but nursing program director Elysia Ockenga said the curriculum was adapted to ensure students were experienced with the type of questions they would face.

When it came time for the exam, the nine nursing students — one of the smaller classes of Union nurses due to an enrollment dip during COVID — who took NCLEX this spring exuded confidence, Ockenga said.

"I think the faculty were probably more stressed about it than the students," she said. "They said they felt like they were really well prepared, which was just a testament to the efforts of all the faculty in making them feel they weren't walking into something that was totally new."

All three schools said the 100% first-time pass rate has set the bar high for future cohorts, but they believe those students have also shown younger students the path forward.

"It adds a little bit of pressure, but I also think it shows them it can be done," Fritzinger said.

Ockenga said preparing students for the Next Gen NCLEX is "a team effort" requiring the time and talents of faculty members to create learning activities and "meaningful experiences" that help students succeed, as well as students being intentional in their learning.

"I swell with pride at the fact we have individuals going into this profession who take it seriously and want to give the best patient care they can," she said.

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