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