An outcome assessment for evaluating occupational therapy students' proficiency and skills required for passing the NBCOT computer-based certification test.

The objective the current study was to perform an outcome assessment of occupational therapy students participating in the first offering of a graduate seminar. This seminar was designed to increase their proficiency and skills required for passing the computer-based test (CBT) NBCOT certification exam. Four outcome measures were assessed: pre- and post-seminar NBCOT CBT practice tests score and pre- and post-seminar NBCOT CBT numbers of areas of weakness delineated by NBCOT. Our hypotheses expected that the student score and number of identified areas of weakness at the post-seminar NBCOT practice testing to demonstrate: H1--a score increase over pre-seminar practice testing; and H2--a decrease in the number of areas of weakness delineated by NBCOT over pre-seminar practice testing. All 13 graduating occupational therapy students participated in the seminar and were the subjects of this assessment. The Wilcoxon test (1-tailed) was employed to test the research hypotheses. A significant (Z = 3.11, p = 0.002) post- over pre-seminar practice test score increase was found. No significant post- over pre-seminar practice testing decrease in number of areas of weakness was found.