Early Indicators That A Student May Not Pass Licensing Exams—And How To Address Them
After honing their skills in school, vocational education students don’t get to kick their feet up and rest upon graduation. Instead, many must show their stuff in a licensing/credentialing examination.
Whether it’s the nursing NCLEX or beauty and wellness state boards, school reputations can hinge on their student pass rates. While many students will pass with flying colors, others may not even take the exam.
Here are some early warning signs that a student may struggle with their licensing exam and some tips for early intervention.
1. They score below a certain threshold on entrance exams
Not every school has an entrance exam, but some, like Nightingale College, are putting them in place just to gauge where students are in their education. After diving deeper into their data, Nightingale found that students who scored low on the entrance exam were less likely to persist in the program and successfully complete the NCLEX.
To address this challenge, Nightingale introduced remedial classes for students who scored below a certain threshold on the entrance exam. While this program is new, Nightingale is seeing early indicators of success after implementing these classes.
Another way to support students who don’t score well on entrance exams is to offer extra support and intervention. For example, you could require that they meet with success advisors weekly or bi-weekly.
Suppose you’re working with a lean team or want to be extra confident that low-scoring students receive regular interventions and check-ins. In that case, you can leverage an automated solution that messages students based on pace and progress.
For example, with CourseKey, you can segment low-scoring students and build an automated intervention journey with custom triggers. If a student is doing well and gets a high grade on an assignment, you can automatically send them a congratulatory message to help build up their academic confidence. If a student does poorly on a critical assignment, you can automatically send them a message encouraging them to stay strong and seek out tutoring resources.
2. They struggle with exam-specific concepts
A study published in the Canadian Medical Journal found that a low GPA is one of the highest indicators that a student would not pass their licensing test. It makes sense, even for schools that don’t track GPA: Students who don’t score well on their coursework will likely struggle on exams.
One of the challenges of ensuring academic mastery in vocational education is that programs are short, and classes move quickly. Without an early alert system, student success advisors may not know that a student’s grades are dropping until the student is already onto the next module. Ultimately, the more time it takes for students to get extra support, the more likely they will fall further behind as they try to grasp old concepts.
An early alert system will allow you to see which students aren’t doing well on their coursework and intervene early, giving them the extra tutoring and support they need before the course moves too far ahead.
3. They struggle in a practical environment
Whether it’s an externship, clinical, or for beauty and wellness on the salon floor, if a student struggles with the practical, hands-on component of their education, they’re likely to struggle on a licensing exam.
Unfortunately, many schools struggle to gain visibility into student performance once they’re out of the classroom. This is especially true for allied health and nursing students who may be at an externship/clinical location instead of physically on campus.
One of the best ways to gain visibility is to look at two key areas:
Student attendance: Are they attending the externship site and getting the experience they need to graduate and pass exams?
Skill mastery: Are they performing well with their hands-on skills and competencies?
Digitizing student attendance and skills tracking makes it easier for staff to determine if a student is struggling. For example, say a nursing student receives two poor evaluations from a preceptor in a row. Does your team typically know about the issue quickly? Or is the data delayed while they chase down preceptors?
It’s similar to when students are struggling with coursework. The earlier an advisor knows, the earlier they can intervene, making it more likely the student will be able to catch up and master the concepts.
When your school has strong data processes and systems, advisors have the data they need to help current students, and leaders have the data they need to help future students. For example, CourseKey consolidates student progress and performance data into clear dashboards. Leaders can use the dashboard to spot trends over time, like a correlation between students failing specific modules and failing a licensing exam. This data will allow you to put guardrails in place to help future students succeed.
4.They experience test anxiety
Whether it’s the NCLEX, state boards, or even a regular module exam, test anxiety impacts students nationwide and can affect their mental health. Excellent students may end up performing poorly on a test simply due to the stress and pressure of the situation.
While there’s no quick fix, the best way to address this challenge is to identify it early and work with students throughout their journey. One way to do this is by sending students who self-report test anxiety some extra encouragement, test-tacking tips, and practice resources. In CourseKey, it’s easy to do this using the “user-grouping” feature. Simply place test-anxious students in a group and build custom, automated interventions for them to receive along their journey.
You can also automate surveys that check in with students with a simple “How are you feeling about the test?” If they answer that they’re feeling bad, check in with them. When setting up user group automation, you can easily set up surveys to send at whatever interval works best with your program.
By working closely with the student throughout their journey, you can help them gain confidence in themselves and their abilities in hopes of lessening test anxiety.
5. They haven't made plans to take the test
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” AKA you can’t pass a test if you don’t take it at all.
If a student is approaching graduation and hasn’t made any plans to take the test, there’s a chance that they might not end up taking it at all. It might be because of anxiety, complacency, or because they wanted to pursue a different journey. Either way, it’s essential to know that BEFORE they graduate.
Student success advisors will typically have regular meetings with students who are approaching graduation, but oftentimes, the students who are most difficult to track down are also the students who aren’t planning ahead on their licensing exams.
One way to gain better insight into student plans is by creating a “before you graduate” checklist to serve as an easy “to-do” list for students. At Paul Mitchell The School – Rexburg, the education team built this out in CourseKey’s Skills Tracker tool so students have the list at their fingertips.
You can also automate reminders to help students get signed up for the exam in the month leading up to graduation. With CourseKey, for example, you can set up triggers to send students information about taking the test when they’re 90% of the way to graduation. You can also automate surveys asking students if they’ve signed up, when they’re taking it, and how they feel.
If they do make it out the door without signing up to take the test, you can continue to automate text and email notifications until they update you on their test status.
Helping more students achieve their career goals
The primary goal of vocational education is to give students the skills they need to enter the workforce quickly. However, for many, licensing and credentialing exams are a critical roadblock on the journey to success.
While a variety of factors go into whether or not a student will be successful on their licensing exam, schools can address many of them by intervening early and often.
According to Ena Hull, COO of Legacy Education: “Early intervention is critical. It goes a long way in showing students that we care about them and their success.”
CourseKey allows you to automate that critical intervention and put systems in place that serve as guardrails for students who need extra support. With CourseKey, your staff has the data to power informed intervention and one-on-one coaching to help more students achieve their career goals.
Request a demo if you’d like to learn more.
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