Recertification: toward the development of standards for assuring continued competence

NCCPA, in collaboration with NBME, has begun an investigation that may lead to the development of standards for measuring continued competence. In 1981, the 1980 Primary Care Physician's Assistants Certification Examination was administered as a recertification examination to 1,166 PAs who were originally certified in 1975. The scores were standardized by using the standardization constants for the 1980 Certification Examination reference group. There was a difference between the performance of the certification examinees and the performance of the recertification examinees, with recertification examinees doing less well on all sections than the certification examinees. Correlations calculated between recertificants' performance on their original certification examination and their performance on the recertification examination showed a positive relationship between the two examinations. Their performance on a variety of biographical variables was also analyzed, and the only variable that significantly changed their performance was their current employment status. The validity of the test for making judgments about the competence of experienced practitioners was not addressed by the current study and is a crucial question in evaluating the test as a recertification instrument.