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.
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.