Many candidates for the nursing profession failed the examination of the Order of Nurses of Quebec (OIIQ) in March. The success rate among those doing it for the first time is 53.3%, a score only slightly higher than that of September (51.4%). It reaches 37% among graduates outside Canada.
In a recent investigation report, the commissioner for admission to professions, Mr.e André Gariépy, concluded that the examination of the OIIQ, held on September 26, included “flaws and weaknesses”. According to him, the reliability of the examination was “poor” and its validity “affected”. An expert who contributed to the survey noted “significant problems” in the wording of the questions.
Following this report, the OIIQ announced last Thursday that it will use in the future the examination of the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCLEX-RN), a tool for evaluating the skills of future nurses. used in other Canadian provinces and the United States. He must obtain the green light from the Office des professions du Québec to be able to use it, as he wishes, from 2024.
During the press briefing held last week, the president of the OIIQ, Luc Mathieu, acknowledged that his examination could be “improved”. He pointed out that work had begun on this subject in 2021, well before the commissioner’s investigation, with the aim of making the examination “more robust on certain dimensions”.
The OIIQ believes that the COVID-19 pandemic played a role in the high failure rate of candidates for the profession during the September exam. “Clinical settings were under pressure during the pandemic. The supervision [des étudiants] was deficient at certain levels,” said Luc Mathieu.
According to the Order, of the 475 candidates who failed in September and who registered for the retake exam in March 2023, 70% passed the test.