INFORMATION FOR CANDIDATES WRITING THE CANADIAN REGISTERED NURSE EXAMINATION JUNE 2010 MAY 2015
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CONTENTS CANADIAN REGISTERED NURSE EXAMINATION...... 2 WRITING THE CRNE.............................. 4 EXAM FORMAT.................................. 6 EXAM SCORING................................. 8 SERVICE FOR CANDIDATES WHO FAIL.............. 11 IMPORTANT NOTICE CONFIDENTIALITY........... 12 CRNE PREPARATION MATERIALS.................. 14
SECTION 1 CANADIAN REGISTERED NURSE EXAMINATION CNA owns, develops and maintains the CRNE. Regulatory authorities administer the CRNE. The Canadian Registered Nurse Examination (CRNE) is a national, entry-level exam required for registration and licensure. Everyone who wishes to practise as a registered nurse in Canada (except in Quebec) must write and pass this exam. The Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) develops and maintains the CRNE through its examination company Assessment Strategies Inc. (ASI) and in collaboration with regulatory authorities. The provincial and territorial nursing regulatory authorities administer the exam and determine your eligibility to write the exam. 2
The CRNE is one of the measures used by regulatory authorities to determine your eligibility for registration. The exam measures the competencies required of entry-level registered nurses beginning to practise. CNA s blueprint for the CRNE lists the required competencies and describes how they are measured on the exam. Internationally accepted testing standards are followed in the development and administration of the exam to ensure that it is valid, reliable, fair and culturally sensitive. Using the blueprint, nursing experts from across Canada including nurse educators, clinicians and administrators develop and review exam questions. Before an exam is implemented, expert panels of nurses review all of the questions to ensure that they reflect nationally accepted entry-level competencies that meet the provincial and territorial regulatory authorities mandate of public protection. The CRNE measures the competencies required of entry-level registered nurses. 3
2 SECTION 2 4 Internationally accepted standards of test development are followed to ensure the CRNE is fair, valid and reliable. Use of electronic devices by candidates is prohibited. WRITING THE CRNE The regulatory authority in your province or territory will advise you of the hours of writing and the time that you should arrive at the examination centre. Specific information about any materials you need during the exam will be provided by the regulatory authority. Unless advised otherwise, bring two or three medium-soft (HB) pencils and a soft pencil eraser, but do not bring any books, notes, calculators or other aids. All electronic devices, including electronic watches, organizers and communication devices such as pagers, cellular telephones and PDAs, are also prohibited. Analog watches (i.e., watches that show time by the position of hands on a dial) are permitted.
The regulatory authorities, ASI and CNA are not responsible for the security of any personal items brought to the writing centres. If you have a disability that could adversely affect your performance on the exam and may require some accommodation, you should complete a request for testing accommodation through your regulatory authority. If accommodations are not requested in advance, they may not be available. Some candidates may be sensitive to perfume and aftershave. Please refrain from wearing any scented product to the exam. To be admitted to the examination room, you must show the identification or access card provided to you by your regulatory authority, plus additional personal identification. Printed on the identification or access card will be your name and address, your candidate identification number, the date of the exam, the writing centre code, your school code and the name of the exam. The identification card and number given to each candidate are valid for one writing only. Requirements for additional identification will be provided to you by your regulatory authority. If accommodations are not requested in advance, they may not be available. 5
3SECTION 3 The CRNE consists of multiple-choice questions. Each question has a stem and four options. EXAM FORMAT The exam is presented in one book, which is administered over the course of four hours. The allotted time is sufficient to answer all of the test questions. Do not spend too much time on any one question, and try to answer all of the questions. Marks are not subtracted for wrong answers. If you are not sure of an answer, it will be to your advantage to insert your best guess rather than to leave it unanswered. 6
The exam consists of approximately 220 multiple-choice questions, each of which is designed to measure a specific competency required of entry-level registered nurses. Approximately 50 per cent of the questions are presented within cases in which a brief description of a case is followed by a group of about three to five questions. The remainder of the exam consists of single, independent questions unrelated to a case or to other questions on the exam. Every question on the exam contains a stem and four options. The stem is typically made up of one to three sentences that give relevant information as well as the specific nursing question you are to answer. One of the four options is the correct or best answer, and the remaining three are incorrect or less appropriate answers. Some questions on the exam are experimental and are not counted toward your final score. They are inserted to enable CNA to determine their suitability for use on future exams. Because the experimental questions are not identified, it is important that you do your best and answer every question. It is important that you do your best and answer every question. 7
4SECTION 4 8 The pass mark is determined by a panel of subject matter experts. Questions test the expected performance of an entry-level RN. EXAM SCORING The scoring of the CRNE is carried out under the direction of CNA. The exam is computer scored. Be sure to record only one answer for each question on the answer sheet. Only answers recorded on the answer sheet are scanned and scored. You will not receive any credit for questions answered directly in the test booklet or for which you select more than one answer. A pass or fail result is determined by comparing your score with the established examination standard (the pass mark). If your score is higher than or equal to the standard, you will receive a pass result; if your score is lower than the standard, you will receive a fail result.
The pass-fail standard is set in reference to the content and the level of difficulty of the questions on the CRNE. The standard-setting procedure involves convening a panel of subject matter experts (the examination committee) representing every provincial and territorial jurisdiction that uses the CRNE. This panel of experts rates the CRNE questions on the basis of the expected performance of a beginner registered nurse at the point of entry into practice. The examination committee considers a variety of factors to ensure that the standard candidates are required to achieve on the CRNE is valid and fair. These factors may include information on the preparation of new graduates, data on the performance of candidates on previous administrations of the CRNE, and pertinent research findings. Based on all of this information, a point that represents the required standard is set on a measurement scale. The standard is set as the specific score necessary to pass that particular version of the CRNE. In recent years, the standard required to pass the CRNE (converted here to a percentage for ease of referencing) has ranged from about 59 per cent to 68 per cent, depending on the difficulty of the particular version of the CRNE. However, the standard required on future versions may not necessarily fall within the above range. To ensure fairness, the different versions of the CRNE are statistically equated such that all candidates from year to year are measured against a comparable standard. 9
Your final result will be sent to your regulatory authority four to six weeks after you write the exam. The regulatory authority will then mail your result to you; how long it takes for you to receive your result from the regulatory authority varies, depending on the jurisdiction. Your final result will be sent to your regulatory authority four to six weeks after you write the exam. 910
5SECTION 5 SERVICE FOR CANDIDATES WHO FAIL With few exceptions, you are allowed only three attempts to pass the CRNE. Candidates who fail the exam may request hand scoring of their exams. Applications for hand scoring must be made through the regulatory authority. Specific deadline dates for submitting hand-scored applications will be communicated to failing candidates following each exam. There is a fee for this service, and candidates should contact their regulatory authority for information. With few exceptions, in all provinces and territories you are allowed only three attempts to pass the CRNE. Please check with your regulatory authority for details. 11
6SECTION 6 IMPORTANT NOTICE CONFIDENTIALITY Disclosure of exam material is unethical behaviour and will result in sanctions. Cheating can be detected and will not be tolerated. The exam and its contents, including the exam questions, are highly confidential and are the property of CNA. Candidates writing the exam are prohibited from disclosing the contents of the test booklet and must not, under any circumstances, share any of the information it contains with any person, except as authorized by CNA. Unauthorized production, reproduction or publication of the exam questions is also prohibited by copyright laws. 12
CNA has effective procedures in place to identify individuals who attempt to cheat (e.g., copy answers from another candidate, voluntarily or involuntarily provide answers to another candidate). Unauthorized disclosure or receipt of the contents of a test booklet or any other form of cheating is unethical behaviour and shall result in sanctions. If the regulatory authority determines that a candidate has cheated on the exam, the candidate is automatically assigned a fail result and the writing is counted as an examination writing. Other sanctions may be imposed and may extend to denial of access to the profession. Candidates writing the exam are required to sign a declaration on the cover of their test booklet that reads as follows: I acknowledge that I have read the above provisions regarding the disclosure, production, reproduction or publication of the test booklet and its content, and cheating with respect to the examination. My signature on this test booklet constitutes my agreement not to disclose, produce, reproduce or otherwise engage in the publication of the test booklet and its content, unless authorized by the Canadian Nurses Association, or to cheat with respect to the examination. If you have any further questions about the exam, contact your regulatory authority. A current listing of the regulatory authorities in Canada that use the exam is available on the CNA website. Candidates taking the CRNE are required to sign a Candidate Declaration. 13
7SECTION 7 CRNE PREPARATION MATERIALS The CRNE Prep Guide and the CRNE Readiness Test will help you prepare for the CRNE. CNA has produced two tools under the banner LeaRN to assist candidates preparing to write the CRNE: the Canadian Registered Nurse Examination Prep Guide and the CRNE Readiness Test. The CRNE Prep Guide includes 200 practice questions, answers and explanations, two supporting references for each answer, a performance profile, test-taking strategies, study tips and an interactive CD-ROM with 50 additional questions. The guide helps to familiarize candidates with the format of the exam and provides information on the content. 14
The CRNE Readiness Test is an online simulated CRNE. It consists of 100 questions that approximate the CRNE in level of difficulty and question distribution in each of the competency categories. All questions on the readiness test have appeared on previous CRNEs and are completely different from those in the prep guide. The questions on the CRNE Prep Guide and the CRNE Readiness Test represent common and predictable health situations in contexts or environments in which nurses beginning to practise would work in a generalist role. As in the actual CRNE, the questions have been developed and reviewed by nurses who represent a variety of nursing programs, clinical backgrounds and regions of the country. CRNE Prep Guide CRNE Readiness Test 15
For more information Visit CNA s website for information on how to purchase the CRNE Prep Guide and the CRNE Readiness Test, as well as the CRNE blueprint. You can also read recent CRNE bulletins on the CNA website. cna-aiic.ca
Check out the CNA website for more CRNE information, including the CRNE bulletins, the CRNE Prep Guide and the CRNE Readiness Test. cna-aiic.ca