Grade Inflation In Clinical Stage

Abstract

Grade inflation is a condition when there is an increase of grade point average without the same increase in students’ ability. Grade inflation also occurs in nursing education that needs to be solved since its existence is threatening nursing professionalism. The case shows that the average grade for subjects in clinical stage is close to the maximum point, while the average grade in academic stage is in normal distribution. In this qualtitative research, six clinical facilitators from six different nursing programs were included. The participants were asked regarding the presence of grade inlfation in their institutions. Further, the gap between grade in academic and clinical stages were questioned the factor(s) that make the different, how real the given grade reflect students’ ability, the impact of it to the students and all related elements, and the action to solve this problem. The factors which cause grade inflation in universities especially in nursing are related to the whole aspect of learning and teaching. They are including the institution or nursing program, the faculty, the students and the grading system. The implication of grade inflation among nursing students can be both short and long term such as student’s disatisfaction and their career once they graduated. The process of measuring students’ clinical performance can be made such as evaluation method, number of clinical facilitator, the ability to use evaluation instrument, and the grading system.