Candidate FAQ
How was the exam developed?
The ABVLM Board Certification Examination was developed using the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, which establishes procedures for exam development to insure valid interpretation of score results. Standards are published and adopted by the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Council on Measurement in Education.
Exam items are written, reviewed and approved by an item writer committee, consisting of subject matter experts and psychometricians. The subject matter experts are selected to ensure gender, geographic and primary specialty diversity. All items are reviewed by the entire committee, with a decision to accept, reject or revise.
Item development is ongoing in order to maintain relevancy and currency of the exam. The committee goes through a rigorous process, with the input of psychometricians, to add new items each year. The committee then selects items to be on that year's exam, with a content weighting based on the ABVLM board-approved content document.
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