National Physical Therapy Examination Program Practice Analysis

The Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy (FSBPT) develops and administers the licensure testing program for Physical Therapists (PT) and Physical Therapist Assistants (PTA). FSBPT administers the National Physical Therapy Examination (NPTE) to candidates for licensure or registration in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

 

Since 2000, HumRRO has supported the FSBPT licensure test program in a variety of ways. Earlier work included auditing the technical aspects of the licensure testing program, reviewing the equating procedures adopted after FSBPT shifted to IRT-based testing, conducting ancillary psychometric analyses, test item quality control checking, and developing a procedure for monitoring item parameter drift.

 

The largest efforts included conducting a practice analysis to support updating and reconfiguration of the licensure examinations and designing and developing scenario-based, multiple-choice “practice review tools” to serve as a strategy to ensure continuing competence of licensed physical therapists.

 

The practice analysis involved interviews and workshops with PT and PTA subject matter experts to generate lists of work activities (tasks) and associated knowledge requirements. HumRRO prepared separate work activity and knowledge surveys for each occupation and administered web-based surveys to a representative sample of PTs and PTAs. Entry-level professionals completed the work activity surveys and experienced professionals completed the knowledge surveys. The web-based surveys included various advanced features to allow a better participant experience and improved data collection procedures. Such features included multiple branches based on user responses, alternative versions of the time ordering, a login module with pause function and time tracking, navigation modules that allowed traversing back and forth through the multi-paged sections with reminders of missing items on the end of each section, live usage statistics to monitor survey progress, and custom Graphic Interface Design.

 

The survey results were used to determine the critical work activities and knowledges for each occupation. Following these analyses, we conducted workshops with PT and PTA subject matter experts to review the survey results, integrate the results into knowledge-based test blueprints using an iterative judgment-based exercise, and collect work activity/KSR linkage data for each occupation. The process included a holistic judgment exercise modeled on the Angoff standard setting method to help determine the final test blueprint category weights. The new NPTE blueprints, which are founded on knowledge-based categories of test content, are expected to be both more durable over time and easier for stakeholders (e.g., item writers, test candidates, educators) to use compared to their predecessors.

 

HumRRO is also working with FSBPT to design, develop, pilot, and administer a new program to measure the continuing competence of licensed physical therapists. The Practice Review Tool will be available to member jurisdictions as one method for helping to ensure public protection post-licensure. HumRRO worked with a Steering Committee and various groups of subject matter experts to clearly articulate a vision for the new program and develop the assessment and associated administrative procedures. FSBPT envisions a general practice tool as well as tools tailored to various disciplines (e.g., geriatrics, pediatrics). For the general practice area, we have constructed and pilot tested two forms of a scenario-based test that ties several multiple-choice questions to a case-based scenario. We are now constructing forms suitable for the orthopedics practice area.