After The Exam

The examinations are computer-scored. You will receive one point for each correct answer. You receive no points for omitted answers. Examination questions that do not meet statistical standards will not count toward your total score. The examination also contains experimental questions that are being assessed for future use. Your answers to these questions will not count toward your score.

Each candidate was assigned a candidate identification number. Following each examination, a list of all successful candidates will be posted here. Unofficial Results will be Pass, Fail or Under Review. Candidates must avoid taking action (i.e., career, move, etc.) before receiving a positive official result in the mail.

Please note that the FDHRC™ has up to six weeks after you write the NDHCE™ to mail your official results. Your official result will be reported as pass or fail. Results will not be given out over the telephone. The FDHRC™ will under no condition fast track examination results for any reason.

The passing score is set by the FDHRC™ Examination Committee which is composed of dental hygiene experts from across Canada. This Committee includes educators, experienced practitioners, administrators and a psychometrician. The Examination Committee establishes a passing score, based on a proven standard setting method, that represents the expected performance of entry-level practice dental hygienists.

To ensure the integrity and security of the NDHCE™, every exam form has a unique combination of items. Thus, no two versions or “forms” of the exam are the same, although all forms conform to the same test specifications (see NDHCE Blueprint) and are created to be similar in terms of difficulty level. To ensure fairness in the examination scoring process, a statistical method called equating is used to account for differences in exam form difficulty and to calculate a scaled score.

A scaled score is a mathematical transformation of a candidate’s raw score (i.e., total number of items correct) on an exam to a common scale. This scaled score allows for valid comparisons of results across exam administrations even if there are differences in the difficulty of the exam taken. Interpretation of the raw score and the scaled score will result in the same conclusion in terms of a candidate’s pass/fail status.

Scaled scores are particularly useful for reporting results given that there is always some variability in the difficulty of different versions of an exam. Scaled scores therefore make these differences across forms disappear so that a particular score has the same meaning across time.

For the NDHCE™, the scaled score range is from 200 to 800 with a typical passing score of around 550. Please note the FDHRC will not release/report a candidate's specific score only Pass or Fail results.