What Goes Into a Decision? How Nursing Faculty Decide Which Best Practices to Use for Classroom Testing

To explore the decision-making process of BSN faculty when determining which best practices to use for classroom testing.

A descriptive, correlational study was conducted with a national sample (N = 127) of full-time BSN faculty. Participants completed a web-based survey incorporating instruments that measured beliefs about evaluation, decision-making, and best practices for item analysis and constructing and revising classroom tests.

Study participants represented 31 states and were primarily middle-aged white women. In multiple linear regression analyses, faculty beliefs, contextual factors for decision-making, and decision-making processes accounted for statistically significant amounts of the variance in item analysis and test construction and revision. Strong faculty beliefs that rules were important when evaluating students was a significant predictor of increased use of best practices.

Results support that understanding faculty beliefs around classroom testing is important in promoting the use of best practices.