Reasons the 10% ATI Exam should not count for class grade:

Students have been asked to be adaptive to change throughout the 2020 spring and fall semesters. With the COVID Pandemic affecting the way in which class is presented and information is delivered, it is without question that students need to further apply themselves to understand the content, and with this comes an overabundance of stress and anxiety in an already physically and mentally draining program.  Along with these changes, a new program was introduced to us, ATI.

ATI is a wonderful program with great benefits looking long-term towards the NCLEX, but with the ever-so-changing semester, it is extremely overwhelming for students to be given an extra exam that counts for 10% of their grade when they are already having to work harder than ever before with these adaptive changes. Not to mention, at the end of November we will be shifting to class fully online and at home again, along with exams. This setting is extremely stressful for students, and it will be very difficult to change our routines so late in the semester.

Although it seems very beneficial to take this exam, and I do still believe it should be administered, I do not think it should count for 10% of my grade; especially considering it is only a week before the final exam. If it was going to count for a grade, I think it should be offered before the withdrawal period- but since it is being administered so late in the semester, I believe that the student’s results from the exam should count for a grade in a similar way that 430 is applying it to class grade.

If the student is successful on the exam it allows for added points on the final exam, and if they do poorly it is not going to affect their course grade at all.

This seems like the fairest way to administer this exam, especially considering all the adaptations students have had to make to try to be successful, and all the added stress that this pandemic has caused everyone.   

Not only is this test supposed to be administered a week before finals, but it is also going to be testing us on information that we have not learned this semester and may not have had in our courses at all. From the ATI questions I have done, over 60% of the questions I have had have not been on information related to course content being taught, and it isn’t even related to course content I have learned in my past medical-surgical courses. With this being said, it is completely unfair that this exam is administered a week before the final exam- the month of December is usually the peak of stress for students. It is crunch time for many students as they are completing their elective courses, taking their 4th nursing exams, and then getting ready for finals. Adding another exam worth 10% of our grade so late in the semester could prove to be detrimental to the overall hard-earned success in the semester and program.