How Chatbots Respond to NCLEX-RN Practice Questions

ChatGPT often "hallucinates" or misleads, underscoring the need for formal validation at the professional level for reliable use in nursing education. We evaluated two free chatbots (Google Gemini and GPT-3.5) and a commercial version (GPT-4) on 250 standardized questions from a simulated nursing licensure exam, which closely matches the content and complexity of the actual exam. Gemini achieved 73.2 percent (183/250), GPT-3.5 achieved 72 percent (180/250), and GPT-4 reached a notably higher performance with 92.4 percent (231/250). GPT-4 exhibited its highest error rate (13.3%) in the psychosocial integrity category.