CFLE Directions: NCFR to Offer Family Life Education Assessment Exam

by Dawn Cassidy, M.Ed., CFLE, NCFR Director of Education
CFLE Network

Over the past few years many NCFR members have expressed interest in using the Certified Family Life Educator (CFLE) exam as an assessment tool for their family program. For a number of reasons, most notably security, this is not feasible. Additionally, the creation of a completely separate assessment exam is cost-prohibitive. The recent creation of a standing CFLE Exam Committee and a process whereby the CFLE Exam item bank is updated on a regular basis has made the creation of a family life education assessment exam more feasible.

Therefore, last fall we administered a survey to gauge interest. 80% of those who responded to the survey did not currently have an assessment exam. However, over 50% answered Yes to the question "Would your program be interested in a program assessment exam offered through NCFR," with another 42% saying Maybe. Based on this strong expressed interest NCFR decided to move ahead with the creation of an assessment exam. I am pleased to announce that it will be available this fall.

Items for the NCFR assessment exam will be developed using the same criteria as the exam used to award the CFLE credential to individuals. The CFLE Exam Committee item writers (IW) are currently in the process of creating items for a single NCFR item bank based on the Family Life Education Content and Practice Guidelines. While the IWs will review and approve items, they will not know which items may be selected for an exam form. Using the approved items from the NCFR test bank, our testing vendor, Schroeder Measurement Technologies (SMT), will create a separate test form for use by academic programs for program assessment. Going forward, both the CFLE Exam and the assessment exam will be updated through items pulled from the same NCFR test bank. However, items will only appear on one test form; we will not pull questions from the CFLE Exam for use on the assessment exam and vice versa.

It is important to note that the assessment exam will not result in certification for those who successfully complete it. The assessment exam will only be used to help family science programs evaluate how well their program is covering the family life content areas identified as representing the knowledge, skills and abilities needed for effective practice in the field of family life education.

The logistics of how the exam will be administered and the data reported back to the programs is currently being worked out but it will likely look something like this:

Paper and Pencil Administration – In order to keep the cost of the assessment exam within reach of most programs it will be administered by paper and pencil rather than computer-based testing (CBT) (although administration by CBT will be an option). SMT will ship printed copies of the assessment exam to programs via secure shipping. The assessment exams will be administered by an approved onsite proctor and shipped back to SMT on the same day.

Aggregate Data - Exam data will be reported to the program and not to individual students. At this time, we plan to provide a program with the following aggregate data.

Aggregated student data - Average data for all students' performance (e.g., the average score for all students was 80%)

Aggregated student data for each of the ten family life content areas - Average data for all students' performance in each of the ten content areas (e.g., average score for all students in content area 1 = 60%, content area 2 = 95%, etc.)

Comparison of aggregated student data - Data comparing your students' average performance to the average performance of students from peer institutions* (e.g., the average score for all students from University 1 = 79%; University 2 = 84%; etc.)

Comparison of aggregated student data for each of the ten family life content areas - Data comparing your students' average performance in each of the ten content areas to the average performance in each of the ten content areas of students from peer institutions (e.g., the average data for all students' performance in each of the ten content areas at University 1: Content Area 1 = 75%, Content Area 2 = 97%, etc.; University 2: Content Area 1 = 83%, Content Area 2 = 91%, etc.). Comparison data will not be available until a sufficient number of students have completed the assessment exam.

Individual student data – Survey respondents expressed some interest in individual student data (students would only be identified by an ID number) but there was greater interest in aggregated data. NCFR will have the option of providing data on individual student scores upon request.

*Note that peer institutions would only be identified by an ID number.

I am currently in the process of talking with representatives from Family Science programs that have expressed interest in an assessment exam to verify expectations, work out the logistics of administration, and finalize costs.

NCFR is excited to be able to respond to a need expressed by the membership and to provide this service to the discipline of family science. Of course I will provide more information about the NCFR assessment exam as it becomes available but please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or want to talk further about the assessment exam.

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