January 16, 2024
January 16, 2024Recently, the NCSBN® Performance Reports Support Center received some questions from an educator affiliated with a program that received a #1 rank in Table 3.2 of the NCLEX® Program Reports. Given that over 400 RN programs received a #1 rank in the 2023-2024 Semi-Annual Fall Edition of the NCLEX® Program Reports, Mountain Measurement shares their questions and the subsequent discussion with others. This correspondence has been shared with permission from Dr. Tamara Moyer.
From: Tamara Moyer
Sent: Saturday, December 9, 2023 3:02 PM
To: NCSBN® Performance Reports Support
Subject: re: question about report
Hello,
I received our quarterly report and according to it, our school ranked # 1 for the last 3 quarters. My question is, does this mean our scores were the highest out of all nursing schools in the USA? Also, is this information allowed to be used for marketing purposes? Lastly, is there a report I can access that shows all programs in the USA results?
Thank you,
Dr. Tamara Moyer DNP, RN, CNE, CNEcl
Dean, Allied Health and Nursing
Allied Health and Nursing | Hocking College
From: NCSBN® Performance Reports Support
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2023 5:28 PM
To: Tamara Moyer
Subject: re: question about report
Good afternoon,
It is up to your program to decide how it wants to use the information provided in the NCLEX® Program Reports. Mountain Measurement strongly encourages you to use the information for program evaluation. Some programs have used the information for marketing purposes in a similar way to what you have proposed. This information is covered as part of the Mountain Measurement Professional Development Courses NCLEX® Program Reports Introductory Series. You may want to consider taking the 101 and/or 102 course.
Table 3.2 of the NCLEX® Program Reports provides the rank of your program based on its passing rate. Your program got a 100% passing rate during the past 3 quarters. Therefore, based on passing rate alone, your program performed as well as the other programs that had a 100% passing rate. However, overall score information is not provided making it impossible to evaluate how your program performed based on overall score. Mountain Measurement would advise you to simply state that your program had a 100% passing rate on the NCLEX® during the past 3 quarters.
The NCLEX® Program Reports do not provide a report which delineates the passing rate of each program. However, table 3.6 provides a distribution of the passing rate of programs and can be adjusted to view the passing rate of programs by jurisdiction, program type, and for all RN programs across the nation. That information should suffice in answering any questions you have about the performance of other programs.
Thank you for your inquiry. We hope that the new Program Reports have been useful to you.
Best wishes,
Wyetta Bontempo, Ph.D.
NCSBN® Performance Reports Support Center
From: Tamara Moyer
Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2023 10:09 AM
To: support@mountainmeasurement.com
Subject: re: question about report
Good evening,
Thank you for the information. This was very helpful.
We really worked hard to save our program and are looking at how we can market the great success of our team and the strides the program has made. I would love to be able to report that we were ranked #1 among other programs for the 3 quarters, or if we remain at 100% for this year for the annual report.
However, if I am reading this correctly, you are saying we cannot put that we ranked #1 although the report lists this, correct? As a new leader, this is very misleading and after reporting to my higher ups, I feel this information is not exactly as it reads and I may have informed them incorrectly.
Your assistance is greatly appreciated,
Dr. Tamara Moyer DNP, RN, CNE, CNEcl
Dean, Allied Health and Nursing
Allied Health and Nursing | Hocking College
From: NCSBN® Performance Reports Support
Sent: Wednesday, December 27, 2023 3:05 PM
To: Tamara Moyer
Subject: re: question about report
Dr. Moyer,
Congratulations to you and your colleagues for turning your program around! As you know, 100% of your first-time graduates passed the NCLEX® during Fall 2023. That's worthy of praise, and I understand your excitement to share this information with your stakeholders.
Your program was not the only program that had 100% of its first-time graduates pass the NCLEX® during Fall 2023. In fact, over 400 programs had 100% of their graduates pass the NCLEX® during Fall 2023. As such, you are not the only program that ranked #1 based on first-time passing rate during Fall 2023. Therefore, Mountain Measurement would like to caution you in reporting this information to your stakeholders since there are ways in which this rank can be misleading.
In statistics, ties can be reported in a few different ways. Section 3 of the NCLEX® Program Reports uses the method of assigning the lowest numeric rank to all programs that are tied based on their passing rate. Keep in mind that your program could have been ranked 244th or 488th by simply using a different rule for ties (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranking for some example rules). In many situations including sporting competitions, ties are acknowledged as part of the information provided along with rankings. For example, the term “co-champions” is sometimes used when two teams receive the same #1 rank.
Keep in mind that your #1 rank was based on the passing rate not the mean competency estimate (expressed in logits) or other more precise measures of program performance. Given that more than 400 programs had 100% of their first-time graduates pass the NCLEX® during the Fall 2023 report period, it is unlikely that your program ranked #1 based on the mean competency estimate or other measures.
In conclusion, if you state that your program ranked #1 based on passing rate, then it is possible for readers to misinterpret the information and might think that your program did better than the other programs which also obtained a 100% passing rate. Rather, when you state that your program obtained a 100% passing rate, it is difficult for readers to misinterpret, implies that your program ranked #1 based on passing rate (since there is no such thing as a passing rate greater than 100%), and is an impressive statement about the performance of your program's graduates. Therefore, I encourage you to state that your program obtained a passing rate of 100% rather than stating that your program ranked #1.
Lastly, congratulations once again on turning your nursing program around. Even if your program was not the single program with the highest passing rate in the country, a 100% passing rate is an impressive result. I would encourage you to be proud of this outcome rather than humbled by the distinctions that we discussed in this correspondence.
Sincerely,
Wyetta Bontempo, Ph.D.
NCSBN® Performance Reports Support Center
