NEXT GENERATION NCLEX-Are You Ready? The Nurse Speaks, 2022 File by Damion Jenkins

Over the past couple of years, I’ve heard a lot of chatter surrounding the topic of the “Next Generation NCLEX®”, especially concerns coming from fellow nurse educators. Admittedly, some of the things I was hearing sounded suspect, and I wanted to see if I could learn a bit more. In my pursuit for understanding, I attended several NCSBN hosted webinars, conference calls and update briefings. To help clear up some misconceptions about the “Next Generation NCLEX®”, I will share what I have learned: 1. The primary function and purpose of the NCSBN remains the same – to protect the public from unsafe nurses. The Next Generation NCLEX® strives to enhance safety by further challenging nurse candidate’s critical thinking and decision- making skills. 2. The NCSBN has made a conscious effort to share more of their decision making with educators. 3. The NCSBN researched test plan items require the most critical thinking. 4. Some test plan items, such as “The Admission Process” requires clinical judgement for every task associated. So – What’s the Big Deal with the Next Generation NCLEX®? After the NCSBN analyzed this data, they have identified the following: Critical Thinking/Clinical Judgement is essential for entry into nursing practice. Current NCLEX® test plans and design only address clinical judgement in an indirect way. Question types that do challenge clinical judgement are limited. The NCSBN recognizes that new methods for measuring competence in clinical judgement are needed. The NSSBN recognizes that this will require ongoing research, as well as new question types. Partial credit (more appropriately defined as polytomous scoring) may be provided for certain question types. New question types will do a better job of measuring clinical judgment. The NCSBN has provided recommendations and identified some key points for educators in preparing nursing students for NCLEX® success: 1. The Nursing Process will remain the foundation in which we operate as nurses and is how the test measures clinical judgment. The Next Generation NCLEX® will emphasize this much more. 2. The average test-taker thinks of The Nursing Process in a linear manner. They think ADPIE and then back to the beginning. 3. The NCSBN has identified this as an issue because assessment and evaluation can occur at any point throughout The Nursing Process and should be taught in this manner. 4. Nurse educator will need to improve measurements for validating critical thinking and clinical judgement. 5. Instead of focusing on identifying one answer, create question types that ask students to analyze a variety of choices: (Indicated, Nonessential, Contraindicated). S. All test plan and question type recommendation changes are subject to a vote. 7. Majority of the current test plan items will remain the same.