CAGEN
Examination Policies:
All examination materials are copyrighted material of the ACNB. No reproduction or duplication of the material is permitted, unless authorized by ACNB. All draft materials utilized by examination development committee members are kept secured in a double locked enclosed area and inventoried regularly. All committee members sign confidentiality agreements when generating and/or reviewing examination materials. Any material considered unusable is shredded prior to disposal.
All duplication of examination materials has been done in a closed environment under secure
arrangements. All test documents utilized by exam candidates have unique control numbers.
Any examination materials delivered to an examination site by courier service have an inventory
list that is signed off prior to delivery and upon opening. Once used and repackaged for courier
shipment, the inventory list is completed and initialed again.
All candidates are examined utilizing the same form of the comprehensive written examination.
No equivalent forms of the competency evaluation are needed. The ACNB has established a policy
that all examinations will be generated in English. Written translations of the competency
evaluation are not available. No adaptations of the evaluation material are utilized at this
time. Accommodations for candidates with disabilities are dealt with on an individual basis
in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and upon special request and validation
of the disability. In accordance with American Psychological Association Standards for Test
Administration, additional time may be provided to candidates who train in a language other
than English, specifically in the practical/oral examination. Again, this must be requested
in advance.
Test items utilized in the examination have been keyed to an examination blueprint and
validated by the collective judgment of the subject matter experts utilized in a series
of committees. These committees include objective writers, case study writers, item writers
and distractor writers. These committees validate items utilizing source documents from the
chiropractic neurology field. All of these activities have been conducted under the direction
of a consultant psychometrician subject to standards acceptable to the National Organization
of Certification Agencies/National Commission for Competency Assurance (NOCA/NCCA) (USA).
A final review panel has been utilized outside of the examination development committees to review the work of the committees and to monitor the validation procedures utilized by the committees, the linkages of the test items to the examination blueprint, and associated content specifications. The procedures utilized by the panel minimized content error on the part of the committees and have provided assurances that the committees followed generally accepted principles in item development. Each examination question has undergone this process and the items were entered into an item-banking computerized program, (LXR test software package, PAR score/PAR test) which allows the board to maintain all of the specifications of the test item relating to its linkage to the examination blueprint, job analysis, and content validity.
After a sufficient pool of questions was developed and banked into the software, an assessment
was made of the number of test items developed for each content domain to ensure that there was
a sufficient pool of items in each major/minor content area. Once satisfied that a sufficient pool
of items existed, a form of the examination was generated according to the content specifications.
This form was subjected to yet another field test by a selected group of diplomates to sit the exam
as pilot test takers. After signing the appropriate confidentiality forms, the reviewers took the
test and rated the worthiness of the test and the test items according to predetermined criteria.
A consultant psychometrician reviewed comments, edits, and recommendations and made necessary
changes.
The written examination consists of three four-hour segments of multiple choice tests, each test
has 150 items for a total of 450 items. The four forms of the practical examination each consist
of 113 items. Each form is identical to the others with the exception of the case to be examined
and the set of video clips. Each item undergoes Angoff cut score determination separately. The
cut score for each Practical Examination Form is determined from the items on that Form. Therefore,
each Practical will have a slightly different cut score from the others.
A cut-score committee was assembled to establish the passing point of the examinations. The
committee members selected were screened for their qualifications in the field of chiropractic
neurology. The members selected did not include any diplomates involved in the item development
process. The cut-score procedure utilized was a modified Angoff procedure for determining the
various passing points on both written and practical examinations. Each member of the committee
rated each criterion that will be used in the grading of the examinations and a running mean
score was calculated. When completed, the cut score for each of the examinations was determined,
including the variance, standard deviation, KR 20 value, and the standard error of measurement.
Each member of the multiple-choice exam Angoff cut-score committee was responsible for determining
the passing point as it related to the minimally competent candidate. Prior to their initial rating,
committee members were trained on cut-score methodology and provided a worksheet outlining the
process with space on the worksheet to be used in describing the minimally competent candidate.