Bruin Brief 2022-02-11: NCLEX Mid-year update for 2021-22

Owned by Paul Macey
Feb 12, 2022
4 min read

Every year in October, the California Board of Registered Nursing releases NCLEX pass rates for students who graduated from schools across the state. The Bruin Brief in October 2021 reviewed UCLA SON NCLEX pass rates and a follow-up Brief in November offered a more detailed report of how NCLEX pass rates are calculated and reported.

 Where are NCLEX pass rates today?  Since the last Bruin Brief report, new NCLEX pass rate data became available. This mid-year data accounts for half of the reporting period but captures perhaps 90% of the 2021 MECN and BS classes. The table below shows the estimates (to date) for 2021-22 data based on available data.

 

Considering NCLEX pass rates for part of the reporting period, we can tentatively see that the MECN student pass rate is improving slightly. Both MECN and BS students are now above the 85% pass rate expected by the School of Nursing faculty, as outlined in the School’s total evaluation plan. Another update to faculty will be published when the reporting period concludes in October.

 Topical mastery. To complement the overall understanding of NCLEX pass rates, the School of Nursing has a longstanding contract with Mountain Measurement, Inc. to access NCLEX Program Reports.  These reports are created using students’ responses to NCLEX questions. The Program Reports help us understand how students performed on the NCLEX at the topic level. Each year, the Prelicensure Program administrators and faculty review 50-page Program Reports in detail, and consider how feedback on topical mastery can be used to strengthen course content and support student outcome competency.

 Below is a snapshot of the Client Needs Program Report. The graphic compares the median graduate of our program in 2020 and the median graduate of 2021 in a percentile rank based on performance relative to a national population of graduates.

What this chart tells us. This chart shows how well the BS program´s typical graduate taking the NCLEX examination for the first time during this reporting period performed in the different Clients Needs subcategories and how that compares with the performance of last year´s typical graduate and with graduates across the United States and its territories.

Three types of comparisons are possible: (1) how our program´s typical graduate compares with the rest of the country, (2) how well our program´s typical graduate does in the Client Needs subcategories (*note that the difficulty of the items has already been taken into account), and (3) how the two reporting periods compare. The numbers on the vertical axis of the charts are percentile ranks, indicating percentage of graduates who performed less well than (or the same as) a UCLA typical graduate.

Differences in percentile ranks must be interpreted with caution. A single percentile-point spread towards the middle of the scale represents less of an observed score difference than the same spread at the extremes (e.g., 50th and 51st are not as different as 90th and 91st). These charts are most appropriately used to determine areas of general program strength and weakness, and not to make precise comparisons. An example statement that might be made based on data from the charts provided is, "In the most recent time period, the median (typical) UCLA SON graduate did as well or better than 56% of the graduates in the country in the first subcategory (Management of Care). The median graduate from our program did as well or better than 67% of the graduates in the country in the second subcategory (Safety and Infection Control). In the previous time period, the typical UCLA graduate performed in the lower 50% of graduates nation-wide in those two categories."

If you remain intensely curious about the Program Reports, talk to Anita Bralock, Emma Cuenca, and Barb Demman. They bring years of experience to interpreting these reports. The NCLEX Taskforce, led by Dr. Bralock, is looking at this data to consider ways to support students’ NCLEX success.  Prelicensure leadership examines Program Reports each year, including the 25 different tables and charts that document how the graduates performed on the NCLEX during the reporting period. Performance in these Reports is divided into:

  • Overall Performance

  • Performance along the 8 areas of the NCLEX® Test Plan

  • Performance along 37 topics described by 6 common nursing frameworks

    • The 5 phases of the Nursing Process

    • The 8 categories of Human Functioning

    • The 10 categories of Health Alterations

    • The 4 areas of the Wellness/Illness Continuum

    • The 6 stages of Maturity

    • The 4 aspects of Stress, Adaptation, and Coping

  • Test Duration Performance

NCLEX pass rates, Program Reports, and the AACN Essentials braid together. With the newest edition of the AACN Essentials in hand, we are already reshaping the curriculum for prelicensure students. The faculty on the Essentials Taskforce meet every-other-week. We started thinking about updating program outcome competencies, and we will bring updates to the faculty as we work through the overall program, courses, and outcome competencies. This is a school-wide effort led by the Taskforce, so stay tuned for updates and ways you will participate. Program Report data will be part of the mix as all members of the faculty talk about implementing competencies across domains in the four spheres of care. As a school, we will plan the best prelicensure curricula possible, implement, and evaluate with NCLEX and other outcome data to guide quality improvement over time.

Thank you for being part of the UCLA School of Nursing as we advance excellence in the prelicensure programs.