A comparison of paramedic didactic training hours and NREMT-P examination performance

The didactic hours required by paramedic training programs differ tremendously throughout the country. The authors hypothesized that a correlation exists between paramedic didactic training hours and pass/fail performance on the National Registry Examination.

The authors retrospectively examined the performance of every applicant for the National Registry Paramedic Examination in June 1996. Applicants were identified by their National Registry Identification Number. A database was established linking the applicants to whether they passed or failed the NREMT-P exam. The authors then searched through the National Registry's archives and pulled each applicant's original application papers. On each application is a space to indicate the number of didactic hours of training that the particular applicant underwent. This information was also included in the database. The numbers of didactic hours of training and pass/fail performance on the NREMT-P exam were compared by point biserial correlation.

One thousand six hundred applicants applied for the National Registry Examination in June 1996. For the 1,553 applicants included in the study, the mean number of didactic training hours was 377.5, with a standard deviation of 167.0 and a range of 63 to 1,594. The correlation between paramedic didactic training hours and pass/fail performance on the National Registry Examination was rpb = 0.0493, p = 0.0522.

There is no correlation between paramedic didactic training hours and pass/fail performance on the NREMT-P examination.