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Measuring competency levels with Health Education Systems, Inc Exams in Schools of Nursing
Research critique

Title and Facts
The article that I have chosen to critique is an article that was written by S. Morrison, C. Adamson, A. Nibert, and S. Hsia for who are all PhD, RN licensed. The article is entitled "HESI Exams: An Overview of Reliability and Validity." The title of this article is appropriate and descriptive in that this article addresses the means of measuring the reliability and validity of the Health Education Systems, Inc (HESI) Exams. This article evaluates two HESI exams. These exams are HESI specialty exams and HESI exit exams. The authors tell us within the article why the specialty exam was developed and how it is used. The specialty exam assesses the student's comprehension and ability to relate concepts within particular content areas. Facilities consider the scores from these exams and use them as a replacement for teacher-made final exams. The HESI specialty exams consist of 50-items. The authors speak about midcurricular exams which are custom exams given to students to evaluate several nursing courses consisting of 100-test items as well as making them a valuable tool as an exit exam at the end of the first half of the curriculum. The article goes on to explain the reason the exit exam was developed which is to evaluate students' preparedness for the licensing exam to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the students and the possible need for remediation before they are to take the licensure exam. The exit exam is a 150-item comprehensive exam given towards the end of the curriculum. There are different versions of this exit exam for the RN and the PN students to take. There are currently four versions for RN students and two versions available for PN students. The exit exams have shown to reveal a high degree of accurateness in predicting outcomes of the students that sit...