Developing Test System in Academic Nursing School

To describe the development of a school system dealing with building tests and controlling the process of producing test in the academic nursing training center in central Israel. By the end of the process, a model was built, and a work instruction was developed to guide uniform work methods among the organization staff members.

Background

There are several study courses in the academic nursing training center:

Academic training of four years, 2.5 years retraining courses and 10 to 12 months advanced courses (advanced training) in specific domains for nurses as: intensive care, operation rooms, infections prevention. Most of the tests in these courses take place in nursing school.

Evaluation of learners’ achievements is part of the training process in nursing school. There are many ways to evaluate learners’ achievements, but the most common way is a test. There are different types of tests. Tests have many advantages. The test results enable to identify the weak and strong learners and the missing disciplines in a specific group of learners. The teaching and learning processes can be deduced from test results. All tests in the nursing school are of a multiple-choice type (including a stem and four distractors, one of which is correct). There is an increase in the required number of tests to be produced for students in the nursing school and therefore there is a need to establish a system that regulates the test producing procedure. The tests are prepared by a team of teacher nurses and lecturers who participate in teaching these courses.

The reasons influencing the need in establishing a school test system:

Increase in the amount of test producing:

1. The nursing administration in the Ministry of Health defined a national target to increase the number of nurses in Israel that claims:

2. To increase the number of learners in all study courses. b. To increase the number of study courses opening each year (working plan, nursing administration, 2018).

3. According to the academic study regulations, each test has two sessions (A and B). In some cases, students get approval to have a special exam session. A fact that creates a need to compose additional tests.

The test quality: The lecturers are expert professionals in their fields: nurses, doctors, dietitians, physiotherapists, pharmacologists. They have to be taught how to write questions in a correct and structured way. They have to know the principals and instructions of composing a qualitative test.

Therefore, we have to:

1. Prevent a situation in which the learners appeal the test questions that find to be correct in a second check and cause the lecturer to cancel questions in the test or accept more than one correct answer.

2. Prevent a situation in which the examinees report during the test that: the question is not clear, the distractors are not clear, there is more than one correct answer or distractors of the answers is correct.

3. Prepare the learners to answer the test simulates the external qualification test during their studies

4. Manage a computerized tests database that will provide a professional solution to composing a qualitative test.

To start this process there is a need in a structured process which recruits the whole teaching staff to the organizational change.

Keywords: Nurse training center; Nursing school; Nurse educators; Tests, Multiple choice tests; Nursing administration; Test map