Frequently Asked Program Director Questions

Why doesn’t DANB release copies of old examinations? Why does DANB assess an application processing fee? Why can’t DANB just call the candidate/program director/employer and ask for the missing information, and allow them to make corrections by phone or fax? How are DANB examination fees set? Why don’t DANB test questions cover “new” materials, which dental assisting programs are required to teach? Why can’t 'official score reports' be mailed any sooner? How are passing standards (‘cut scores’) set? How should educators interpret the data presented in the Program Performance Reports? How should my students interpret their overall scores? How should my students interpret their subtest performance results? Return to Frequently Asked Questions Why doesn’t DANB release copies of old examinations? Examinations administered by DANB are constructed and administered according to strict content requirements. Content required is defined through expert test construction panels and through detailed field research. Each item costs DANB between $100 and $150 to create (in payment to item writers, test construction committee members, staff time to edit, exam proofreading and printing costs). We do not release old exams because of the cost to DANB of depleting our item bank. In addition, there are only so many items that can be written on a specific topic. If we were to release copies of old examinations, we would be unable to use any of the released items on future examinations. Additionally, releasing old examinations may mislead our candidates. As time passes, areas such as dental materials and infection control protocols change. If we release old tests, outdated questions may be viewed as accurate, causing confusion for our candidates. Because DANB cannot release old examinations, The DANB Review was developed. This key reference tool, now in its 2nd edition, features 230 sample examination questions and provides an answer, rationale and reference for each question, plus bibliographic notations to assist in planning studies and review. This guide includes separate review sections (including sample questions) for the General Chairside (GC), Infection Control (ICE) and Radiation Health and Safety (RHS) components of the CDA as well as sections on Orthodontic Assisting (COA) and Dental Practice Management (CDPMA-I & II). In addition, DANB provides an updated Keyword Analysis to program directors each year. This publication provides a keyword or phrase from each DANB national exam question, and groups these keywords according to the ease or difficulty that year’s candidates experienced when answering these test questions. This information may be used by educators to focus future curricular efforts. In addition, DANB publishes a Glossary of Dental Assisting Terminology, in which all dental terms used on DANB exams are defined from a clinical perspective. The 2nd edition of the Glossary will be published in 2005. Return to Frequently Asked Questions Why does DANB assess an application processing fee? DANB is a nonprofit corporation as noted in our mission statement and, as such, must charge fees to cover operating costs. DANB does not receive grants or donations from other agencies. DANB’s income is generated almost solely through examination and renewal fees. As you can imagine, there are many steps involved in registering a candidate for a DANB examination. Applications are opened and sorted, fees are processed and posted, and individual candidate computer records are created. Each application is reviewed individually to ensure that eligibility requirements are met and confirmation or incomplete letters are generated to finish the review process. These processing steps are time consuming, but are crucial in determining who is truly eligible to test, and in creating a reliable and up-to-date candidate database. Return to Frequently Asked Questions Why can’t DANB just call the candidate/program director/employer and ask for the missing information, and allow them to make corrections by phone or fax? DANB requires that test applications be complete at the time of submission. DANB administers approximately 16,000 examinations annually, and since not all applications are complete, DANB processes even more than 16,000 examination applications. Each year, approximately 10% of applications are submitted without the required information and/or the correct fee and returned to the candidate by mail for corrections. (DANB grants a refund to these incomplete candidates minus the $35 non-refundable incomplete application fee. Candidates must correct deficiencies and then resubmit their complete application.) Based on this figure, if DANB were to accept 1 to 3 documents per incomplete application, we would receive 1600 to 4800 individual pieces of documentation by fax which staff would have to link to incomplete applications. DANB staff does not have the time or resources to match up extensive amounts of individual pieces of documentation or to make personal phone calls to those candidates who are declared incomplete. DANB must treat all candidates fairly, regardless of the selected eligibility pathway. Some faxed pieces of documentation would most likely arrive without a cover sheet or have missing information so these candidates would be further delayed in their ability to test. Return to Frequently Asked Questions How are DANB examination fees set? DANB establishes fees at a level to cover our costs. Our fees are established by independent cost budgeting experts, which allow us to objectively assess whether or not our services are over-priced or under-priced in order to determine any need to provide future resources. Cost budgeting requires that we estimate our direct costs (costs clearly defined by department), indirect costs (costs incurred across all DANB exams) and overhead expenses (cost incurred for the benefit of the business as a whole). Once direct and indirect costs of each exam or service are determined, the expenses are subtracted from the revenue to determine the profit or loss. The profit or loss is divided by the number of candidates or certificants who applied for the exam or used the service, to determine the actual cost of administering each exam or delivering each service to an individual. Once the true cost is determined, DANB management makes recommendations to DANB’s Board of Directors regarding appropriate fee levels to assess to ensure that we cover costs. As a nonprofit organization maintained almost solely by testing and renewal fees, we must be assured of adequate funding to maintain the quality of the examination development and scoring process. Return to Frequently Asked Questions Why don’t DANB test questions cover “new” materials, which dental assisting programs are required to teach? There is always a lag between content covered on certification exams, which are mandated to reflect the current practice of a profession and “new” material taught in a formal educational program. Credentialing exams test “what is.” Educational curricula covers what “should be,” or what “soon will be.” As a certification board, DANB has no authority to establish or maintain curricula. In fact, we may have little impact upon courses and content offered at schools. This is not out of disinterest, but rather out of ethical necessity. Courses should not be geared to the test. Rather, courses should provide future dental assistants with all of the skills/techniques needed in the work place, not just “test knowledge.” DANB’s examinations are intended to test national dental assisting basic techniques. Educational tests used in dental assisting schools cover “new” material, with in some cases, greater emphasis is on state-allowed functions, whereas credentialing examinations which are often used as licensure, registration, or job requirements focus on the established, job-related procedures practiced nationally. This is true for all certification exams, not just those for dental assistants. Return to Frequently Asked Questions Why can't 'official score reports' be mailed any sooner? Written results are mailed approximately four to six weeks after each written administration. Part of the scoring process simply involves the unpacking and sorting of returned exam booklets and answer sheets and the recording of noted name/address changes and questions. Persons taking DANB written examinations make use of scannable answer sheets. These answer sheets dramatically speed up the mechanical grading process. However, they do not take the place of intensive examination review. All DANB exams are reviewed for their statistical performance, so that candidates are only graded on fair and functional items. DANB could speed up the process by eliminating this intensive scrutiny. The result would be unfair exams that penalize candidates for errors that were not their fault. DANB believes fairly graded examinations are more important than quickly graded examinations. Score reports are mailed approximately four weeks after each computerized examination. Score reports obtained at computerized testing sites upon completion of a DANB exam are preliminary. The candidate will not be considered as having passed or failed until the official report is generated by DANB. To ensure a consistently high-quality testing program, each examination is routinely reviewed for reliability and validity. Both computerized and written examinations are scored in the same fashion. Computerized results are returned weekly to DANB by electronic transfer from the computerized testing vendor. Therefore, within a week of a candidate’s computerized testing date, DANB’s computerized testing vendor sends the results to DANB. DANB uploads, analyzes and evaluates these results for any inconsistencies before appending them to candidate records. These processes take another one to two weeks. The final week of this waiting period is the time those scores spend in the mail from DANB to the candidate. Return to Frequently Asked Questions How are passing standards ('cut scores') set? Passing requirements are based on content, not percentage correct. The DANB Board has adopted a nationally-accepted, psychometrically sound standard-setting process that requires candidates to answer items correctly at or above certain levels of difficulty across the content areas. A different standard is constructed for each examination, based upon required content. DANB’s national exams are computer adaptive tests (CAT). CAT exams are designed to have candidates answer questions based on their individual ability level. Each DANB national exam is composed of an item bank of 300 to 500 questions. Each of these questions has a difficulty measure. Difficulty measures are first determined when questions are pretested. Each year a certain percentage of the questions on DANB’s national exams are pretest questions. This means the questions do not count towards a candidate’s pass/fail status. Instead, we are gathering information on the questions to ensure they perform properly. After we are sure a question is performing properly, it becomes ‘live’ and now counts towards a candidate’s pass/fail status. During a CAT exam, candidates are given questions based on their ability and the outline of the exam. Candidates first receive a question at or near the difficulty determined to be the pass point. If a candidate answers a question correctly, the next question they receive will be a little harder. If this question is answered correctly, the next one is a little harder and so on. If a candidate answers a question incorrectly, the next question they receive is a little easier. Through this process a candidate’s ability level is determined. A candidate’s ability level must be above the pass point determined by DANB’s Exam Committees in order to pass the test. All candidates must receive the same distribution of items, which means the same percentage of questions covering each content area. This distribution is determined by DANB’s Task Analysis. DANB has set up our CAT exams so all candidates receive the same number of questions. For example, all candidates who take DANB’s RHS exam will answer 100 questions based on the outlines found in DANB’s Task Analysis. Individuals interested in learning the mathematical specifics of standard setting should apply to DANB’s Executive Director for a position on a DANB test construction committee. Valid standard setting procedures are, by their nature, highly technical statistical processes. Rest assured that DANB’s national exams would not be accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies unless our psychometric processes were appropriate and yielded valid, reliable exam results. Return to Frequently Asked Questions How should educators interpret the data presented in the Program Performance Reports? DANB is in the process of redesigning and programming Program Performance Reports. The new reports will include graduation year to help program directors identify results from current students. We expect the new reports to be available in the fall of 2004. DANB will include a Guide to Interpreting DANB Program Performance reports when the reports are sent. Return to Frequently Asked Questions How should my students interpret their overall scores? DANB computes an overall score for each candidate. Passing and failing decisions are based upon this TOTAL score. An overall scaled score of 400 is needed to pass the exam. A simple mathematical formula is used to convert cumulative exam ‘raw scores’ to scaled scores. Scaled scores have many advantages, among the most popular: They are stable from year to year. Instead of shifting percentages, which may vary from year to year because of changes in the difficulty of the examination, scaled scores remain on the same linear ruler year to year. For example when using percentages, if a test is composed of easier items one year the pass point may be answering 75% or more of the questions correctly. If the next year’s exam is composed of harder items the pass point may be answering 70% or more of the questions correctly. A scaled score of 400 represents a passing score now, and in the future. This makes interpretation by candidates easier; particularly those who are repeat test takers. They are more familiar to most students/examinees. As more and more institutions (most notably the Educational Testing Service) report in scaled scores, candidates quickly understand their meaning. For instance, the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) reports on a scale from 100 to 800. Return to Frequently Asked Questions How should my students interpret their subtest performance results? DANB provides three descriptions for subtest performance: Low Average, Average, High Average. DANB highly recommends studying in areas in which the candidate receives a descriptor of ‘Low Average.’ DANB recommends reviewing areas in which the candidate receives a descriptor of ‘Average.’ A descriptor of ‘High Average’ in a subtest indicates a solid understanding of the area. When deciding which areas to focus any future studying it is important to consider both the subtest performance result and the percentage of questions on the exam for each subtest. For example, if subtest A covers 35% of the exam and a result of ‘Average’ was received and subtest B covers 5% of the exam and a result of ‘Low Average’ was received, it would be advantageous to review both areas but focus on subtest A a little more because it contains more questions and leaves the candidate more room for improvement. Subtest performance results are ONLY provided to help candidates focus any future studying in areas in which they performed relatively low. When subtest results are calculated, only the items from that subtest are considered in the ‘scoring’ formula. Each subtest is considered as “its own exam,” when calculating subtest performance and converting these to a subtest performance result. However, because of examination reliability considerations, a pass/fail decision is made on the exam as a whole so performance on all subtests put together is considered when making a pass/fail decision on the entire exam. When DANB calculates subtest results, we do not take into consideration the percentages of each subtest. That is, there is no weighting of subtests involved in the determination of ‘Low Average,’ ‘Average’ and ‘High Average.’ Each subtest is evaluated independently to determine these comparative candidate ratings. Return to Frequently Asked Questions