What is Happening to the National Board Dental Examination?

Kari CunninghamASDA Representative to the JCNDE

Western Regional ASDA MeetingOctober 30, 2009

What is the Joint Commission on National Dental Examinations?

“Joint Commission” “JCNDE” Those people who keep making changes

to the board exam The reason we are here today!

What is the JCNDE? The Joint Commission is the semi-

autonomous agency established by the Bylaws of the ADA to assist state boards in evaluating candidates for licensure by overseeing policies and procedures for its written licensure examinations:

NBDE Parts I and II NBDHE

The JCNDE does this by establishing testing policies and procedures in

accord with the

Standards for Education and Psychological Testing

The Department of Testing Services(the people you reach when you have questions about the NBDE)

Is the administrative unit of the ADA

Joint Commission has 15 members

6 AADE (American Association of Dental Examiners)

3 ADA (American Dental Association)

3 ADEA (American Dental Education Association)

1 ADHA (American Dental Hygienists’ Association)

1 ASDA (American Student Dental Association) + 1 Observer

1 Public

Meets once a year Various standing and ad hoc committees At the 2009 meeting, the JCNDE

established a Committee on Communications (more on this later)

What about the NBDE I and II?Historical Prospective

1928 – National Board of Dental Examiners

Charged to provide and conduct written exams

First editions of exams were essay-based (talk about a true written exam!)

Early 1950’s - the exam was changed to multiple choice

Led to adoption of norm-referenced scoring procedures

1960’s – Council on National Board Examinations employs computer scoring

Early 1980’s –equating examination by using common anchor items

Ensures a consistent standard for minimally acceptable performance

Ended era of norm-referencing: exams became criterion-referenced

Early 1990’s – Part I and II are criterion-referenced examinations

1990 – All U.S. licensing jurisdictions accepted the NBDE as fulfillment of the written requirement for licensure

1992 – a comprehensive, case-based Part II examination

2007 – a comprehensive Part I exam

Why all of these changes? Changes in content to reflect growth in

knowledge of the basic biomedical and clinical dental sciences have been gradual and frequent

Want to keep the content tested reflective of the current practice of dentistry

Protect the purpose, content and validity of the exams

What is the purpose of the NBDE?

The NBDE scoring process possesses minimal error at the pass/fail score of 75

Standard scores are highly reliable only at the pass/fail point

Scoring

The NBDE scores are designed for use by state dental boards in making valid licensing decisions

The use of these scores for any other purpose (student ranking, school ranking, faculty evaluation, admission, etc.) must be validated by the user

Overexposure of exam content Achieving a better score on this pass/fail

exam has become motivation to obtain and share unreleased exam content

Since 2003, the number of candidates who retested after passing Parts I and II is 2046

January 1, 2010

Passing candidates will not be allowed to retest unless required or requested by a licensing jurisdiction

Initial date on which the NBDE Part I and II scores will be reported as pass/fail

Resolution 70Submitted by AAOMP, AAPD, AAP, AAOMS, AAO, AAPHD, ACP

Resolved, that the ADA House of Delegates request that the Joint Commission on National Dental Examinations (JCNDE) reconsider pass/fail on National Board Exams and reinstitute the dental student rankings and standard scores, and that reporting of results to both students and dental schools retain its quantitative nature.

January 1, 2012

The Joint Commission approved of a delay in the transition from a reporting of numerical scores to a pass/fail reporting system from 01/01/2010 to 01/01/2012

Why the delay?

Affords stakeholders more time to prepare State boards may need to amend their

dental practice acts ADEA is researching and developing an

instrument that may assist post-doctoral programs in evaluating candidates

What is ASDA doing?

Two students representing the Association (one observer and one commissioner)

ASDA is represented on the ad hoc Committee on Communications

Committee on Communications

Charged with…Clearly communicating significant policy

initiatives to appropriate stakeholder groups and

Seeking input and feedback from various stakeholder groups as the Joint Commission considers and implements new policy initiatives as part of the strategic plan

Joint Commission Newsletter

Debuted in spring of 2008 Sent to stakeholder groups such as dental

school deans and assoc. deans, advanced education program directors, clinical testing agencies, dental hygiene program directors, state dental boards, JCNDE members, select associations (ADEA, AADE, ASDA, ADHA, NDBE) and others as requested

Individual ASDA members do not receive the JCNDE Newsletter

Word of Mouth ASDA e-publication Possibly utilize social networks (facebook,

myspace, etc.) to enhance communication Update the JCNDE website

Contrary to popular belief…

The JCNDE is not out to get you!!

THANK YOU!!!

References

Technical Report: The National Board Dental Examinations (Copyright 2008)

JCNDE Newsletter (Spring and Summer) Dr. Mark Christensen Trends in Candidate Performance, Tsung-

hsun Tsai (ADA) www.altalang.com