NurseTim Clinical Judgment Exam Testing Policies & Best Practices

Nurse Tim's clinical judgment exams offer comprehensive testing solutions, improving student clinical judgment assessment.

### NurseThink® Clinical Judgment Exams: Effective Testing Policies

* 📌 **NurseThink's** clinical judgment exams are based on the NCSBN model, focusing on bedside client care and using Bloom's taxonomy's analyzing and applying levels to measure students' **clinical judgment**.
* 💻  Partnership with ExamSoft streamlines test creation, blueprinting, and data analysis for faculty.
* 📚  Two exam packages are offered: core and comprehensive, with the latter including 14 specialty exam categories, 42 individual exams, 1400+ build-your-own items, and 3 readiness exams, totaling over 4000 test items.
* 📝 Each category has four exams: two proctored benchmark exams, one open-check practice exam, and one 100-question build-your-own exam; med-surg exams have 75 questions, while build-your-own and readiness exams have 100.
* 🗓️ Exam placement should allow for remediation and occur after students receive sufficient course content; some schools integrate exams into subsequent courses.  "You want to make sure that you've given the exam in enough time that students are able to remediate".
* 🔄 Open-check exams are unproctored practice tests to familiarize students with the question style and difficulty before benchmark exams.  They are designed to be "a little bit harder than what students are used to".
* ⚖️ Benchmark exams (two provided) can be used sequentially with remediation or independently; remediation should involve active learning, not just rereading materials.
* 💯 Scoring policies can adapt existing models from other testing platforms (ATI, Kaplan, etc.), typically accounting for 3-10% of the overall course grade; a sample policy is provided, showing how one school integrates remediation and retake opportunities.  "Don't stress yourself out and recreate the wheel on this".

The NurseThink® Clinical Judgment Exams: Testing policies that work

NurseThink for Next Gen NCLEX 

Introduction and Overview of Clinical Judgment Exams

Stephanie Terry from NurseThink introduces herself and her involvement in developing clinical judgment exams.

The focus is on testing policies for the clinical judgment exams and addressing participant questions.

Exams are based on the NCSBN clinical judgment model, focusing on bedside client care and Bloom's taxonomy (analyzing and applying levels).

Partnership with ExamSoft reduces faculty workload in question development, blueprinting, and data analysis.

Describes core and comprehensive solution packages, including the number of exams and test items available.

Suggests various approaches to aligning exams with the curriculum, considering factors like clinical course timing.

Emphasizes the importance of sufficient remediation time and aligning exam timing with the completion of relevant course material.

Open-Check, Benchmark, and Readiness Exams

Open-check exams are unproctored practice exams, optionally scored, to assess readiness for Benchmark One.

Questions are designed to be more challenging than typical student assessments to measure clinical judgment.

Benchmark exams (one and two) provide flexibility in grading policies; Benchmark Two serves as a replacement or alternative.

Benchmark Two can be used if Benchmark One is compromised or a student misses it.

Remediation Strategies and Scoring Policies

Advocates for active remediation strategies, such as case studies, rather than passive review.

Suggests making remediation an option for all students, even high-achievers, to foster continuous improvement.

Recommends adapting existing scoring policies from other testing platforms (ATI, Kaplan, etc.) rather than creating new ones.

Provides a range (3%-10%) of the course grade typically allocated to these exams, noting variations based on institutional policies.

Strengths and Opportunities Report and Scoring Guidelines

Mentions a future discussion (Wednesday) on the Strengths and Opportunities report and remediation strategies.

Provides suggested score ranges (93%+, 83-92%, <82%) for interpreting exam results, using these as guidelines.

Suggests using these score ranges as a benchmark for open-check exams to determine readiness for proctored exams.

Highlights the importance of security and the partnership with ExamSoft for secure test administration.

Recommends forming a committee to manage the 1400 available questions and their integration into course assessments.

Allows for combining self-created questions with those from the NurseThink bank, but all should be proctored except for open-check practice exams.

Presents a sample scoring policy from a school illustrating how exam scores are integrated into the overall course grade.

This example uses the clinical judgment benchmarks, open-check exams, and proctored benchmark exams (one and two) with remediation based on scores.

Details the remediation requirements based on student performance, including the number of patients to work with and time constraints.

Concludes with an open forum for questions and emphasizes the availability of support for policy development.