AANPCB national certification examinations are competency-based examinations for nurse practitioners to reflect their knowledge and expertise in the role and population area of education.
The Adult NP and Gerontologic NP examinations were retired to comply with the Consensus Model for APRN Regulation: Licensure, Accreditation, Certification, and Education (2008). AANPCB-certified Adult and Gerontologic NPs must renew by practice hours and CE to maintain their active certification.
The Emergency Nurse Practitioner (ENP) certification is a specialty certification by examination developed to recognize eligible certified FNPs with expertise in emergency care.
The nurse practitioner competency-based national certification examinations are developed in conjunction with independent organizations that specialize in examination development and psychometric services. Adult, family, gerontological, adult-gerontology, emergency, and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner subject matter experts (SMEs) from representative work and academic environments, as well as geographical areas, assist in all phases of the development of the examinations.
Major components of the examination development process are:
The examinations are based on a current practice analysis which serves as an objective measure of the knowledge and skills required of competent nurse practitioners. The practice analysis provides the foundation for defining the content domains (areas) of the competency-based examinations. Documents created by these expert panels are validated by representative samples of professionals selected from the adult, gerontology, emergency, and family nurse practitioner community. Test specifications derived from the respective practice analysis for adult-gerontology primary care, family, emergency, and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner serve as the blueprint for the certification examinations.
Each examination consists of 150 multiple-choice items. Items are written and developed by practicing nurse practitioners with extensive knowledge and expertise, and placed in an item bank. All items which appear on the examinations have been reviewed at least four times:
After each practice analysis and test specification update, passing point determination occurs following test construction. Determining the passing point establishes the minimum passing score, which is accomplished using certification standard methods, such as Item Response Theory. The rigor of this examination development process promotes quality, competency-based certification examinations.
Questions may be directed to AANPCB at the following:
Email: certification@aanpcert.org
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