High-Stakes Evaluation: Five Years Later

• Survey research was completed in the months before the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning, 2014, conference to gain insight into where simulation educators and members stood on using simulation for high-stakes evaluation.
• Two hundred sixty-three individuals (43%) stated that they are currently using manikins or standardized patients for high-stakes assessment.
• Nurse simulationists are now more sophisticated in their awareness of the difficulties involved with the actual preparation of reliable and valid scenarios for high-stakes testing, the necessity of using trained evaluators who have been tested for inter-rater reliability, and the need to provide standardized testing experiences.

This article compares the International Nursing Association of Clinical Simulation and Learning (INACSL) memberships' thoughts and discussions about the use of simulation for high- stakes evaluation in nursing education to a similar town hall discussion, five years ago. Data on the topic of high-stakes testing were collected through a survey before the INACSL conference in June 2014. During a town hall meeting at the conference, the survey data was presented, attendees shared their thoughts and reacted to prepared comments by selected simulation leaders. Half of the town hall attendees favored high stakes testing before the survey findings and discussion. This number dropped to a third of the attendees by the end of the town hall meeting, by straw poll. The survey findings, a summary of the town hall discussion and final thoughts from simulation leaders are shared in this article.