Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing, and the other high-demand health care programs each bring in new cohorts of students after a competitive admissions process. The expectation is that all will complete their rigorous training program and transition to their chosen profession.
But what happens when a candidate cannot pass the licensure exam? The losses are greater than simply the disappointment of that one student—it’s also a shared disappointment to the faculty, the program that committed a program spot to that student, and the potential future patients of the student had they succeeded in the program and exam.
There is an obvious way to turn this situation around. First, enable educators and mentors to better predict that a student is at risk. And second provide the student with the professional development resources to close the gap.
These solutions are both made possible by Insight Assessment. Research across the spectrum of medical and health sciences disciplines demonstrates that the Health Sciences Reasoning Test (HSRT) enables health educators to better predict program success and licensure passage. This really is not surprising. The HSRT measures critical thinking skills –the very skill needed to learn well, make sound decisions, and practice safely. Because the HSRT measures critical thinking skills rather than rote knowledge, it uncovers whether students can apply what they’ve learned in real-world situations. By benchmarking these skills early on, educators can spot potential trouble spots in time to offer meaningful help.
For students needing to further develop their thinking skills and mindset, we now offer the professional development mini courses needed at Insight Basecamp. Organizations can incorporate these critical thinking mini courses into their own offerings, or students can be encouraged to purchase them on their own.
How do we know these solutions work? Educators using these resources have seen tangible benefits in student progress. One clinical adviser recently shared how the combination of the HSRT and targeted courses from Insight Basecamp helped two struggling learners: “The student that I am working with in order to re-enroll in the fall is improving steadily on most fronts. He says that he has completed the “modules” a few times with noticeable improvement in several areas. I would like to purchase a new [HSRT] assessment license. If you send the link to me and charge it to me, I will pass it on to the student. Thanks, as always. By the way, the student who we worked with [the same way] a few years ago passed his …[professional licensure exam]. Thank you again.”
The same works for promising candidates entering the workforce. Scores on the INSIGHT Business Professional can be used to predict success. The professional development tools at Insight Basecamp are available to help the candidate strengthen their reasoning skills and thinking mindset which will make their professional success and their value to your organization much more likely.
