Describe Your Exam
Describe and document your exam program at multiple levels. Everyone at the certification organization should be able to give a basic description of how the exams are structured and know where to find details about content, items, passing standards, and candidate performance.
Big Picture: Describe Your Exam Program
How do you describe your exam program? Use this brief yet comprehensive description of an exam program for communicating with vendors, assessors, staff, and governance.
The first section describes general program information, and the second, this year’s test results. Blanks are left for you to fill in your program’s information. In some places, typical alternatives are provided. The Summary Table records statistical details.
Use this fill-in-the-blanks template to Describe Your Program.
Details: Sample Exam Summary Report
Documenting your exam program is critical – have all the important information about your testing program in a single document, whether your vendor writes it, or your staff assembles it from a variety of different technical reports. A Exam Summary Report documents a certification program’s due diligence in the design and administration of its examination program.
Many psychometric vendors’ reports are missing key elements. Reviewing just the Table of Contents from the complete Annual Exam Summary Report can help you figure out how your vendor is doing. It provides an overview of the information that should be regularly reviewed by decision-makers.
Design Your Exam (articles by Ellen Julian)
Moving a Paper Exam to Adaptive Testing Fairly
This article describes the steps taken to assure that moving the nurse licensure examination to computerized adaptive testing would not disadvantage any groups.
Prevent Cheating
This article from Caveon’s e-zine on Test Security describes practical ways that test design can make cheating more difficult.
Improve Item Review
This list is designed to help subject-matter experts review test items to determine if they are fair, accurate, and will provide good measurement.
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