Question for NHIE Advocates...

[Nick Gromicko]

Your only hope is to join InterNACHI. We weild a lot of influence with insurance companies www.nachi.org/insurance.htm and have never had a member put out of business over insurance. Not once. Never.

[James H. Bushart]

And this infomercial for NACHI has to do with the psychometric validity of the NHIE....how?

[Nick Gromicko]

It was a shot at you Jim, to remind you that a relationship with the vendors in this industry has its advantages.

[Nick Gromicko]

Oh heck, I can't help myself: http://www.nachi.org/freegl.htm

[James H. Bushart]

Originally Posted by gromicko

It was a shot at you Jim, to remind you that a relationship with the vendors in this industry has its advantages.

No one, including me, ever said otherwise.

It is when an association provides more for its vendors (in terms of market) than for its members (in terms of proactivity in issues that affect them) that the relationship comes into question, without mentioning any particular association.

[Nick Gromicko]

Talk to Farsetta and change our "hands-off" policy towards association-neutral legislation then.

Everything I do, I do to help members. If as a consequence it helps vendors, so what?

[James H. Bushart]

Joe has already published the doctrine that would have NACHI oppose legislation that would be harmful for the consumer and the inspector...without any regard to its positive or negative affect on the association.

It was what was used to run Bowman out of New Hampshire when he was supporting a measure that was opposed by the NH Chapter.

By that doctrine, Bowman would have had the right to be involved, even over the objection of the NH Chapter (if invited in to the state by other NACHI members), if his role was to oppose legislation that would hurt consumers or home inspectors.

We don't have to invent or re-invent any wheels. We simply need to comply with the policy we have had.

NACHI should never, ever, ever be neutral in matters that cause harm to home inspectors or their clients. Never.

[James E. Braun, CMI]

Originally Posted by gromicko

Talk to Farsetta and change our "hands-off" policy towards association-neutral legislation then.

Everything I do, I do to help members. If as a consequence it helps vendors, so what?

So are you giving Joe permission on deciding if NACHI will fight and/or take legal action a certain bill in a state that harms inspectors and/or consumers? If so will you be willing to back his decisions, no matter what he decides?
No offense, but Joe seems to be more leveled headed about home inspection licensure than most members including you Nick.

[James H. Bushart]

Here is what Joe provided on another thread:

Actually, Nick, lat's not the policy statement. The actual policy statement was crafted by me, after the NH incident, where it was perceived that efforts in that state were being driven by NAtional, and not representative of the wishes of a majority of those in the state.

I sent it to you and you approved it.

I dug it up. A bit wordy, but here it is:

The National Association of Certified Home Inspectors
Policy and Position Statement on Home Inspection Legislation

The International Association of Certified Home Inspectors (NACHI) is committed to supporting its members wherever and whenever legislative efforts are underway in member States to establish home inspector licensing. To that end, NACHI has adopted the following position statement relative to HI legislation, proposed HI legislation, and HI legislative efforts in any state, county, or municipality where any such laws are in effect, being proposed, or are under development.

NACHI believes that members should remain in control of their own destinies. To that end, NACHI does not support “model” home inspection legislation, as we believe that one size does not fit all. Membership, market, and geography should be the determining factors in HI legislation that NACHI can and will support.

In general, where home inspection legislation is needed or eminent, NACHI supports legislation that genuinely keeps the consumer and inspector in mind. NACHI will NOT support legislation which we believe will hurt our members or the consumer. While we believe in testing, NACHI does NOT support any legislation which limits testing to the NHIE. Descriptions such as “psychometrically valid” shall be tolerated in those specific instances where the State takes the time and invests the funds to evaluate all available exams for adherence to true psychometric criteria and validation.

Additionally, NACHI does NOT support legislation which eliminates grandfathering, establishes arbitrary apprenticeship (or like) programs as a requirement for licensure, or mandates any arbitrary or restrictive measures to meeting legitimate licensing or educational requirements (including continuing education) for home inspectors or prospective home inspectors.

Finally, NACHI will NOT support legislation which specifically names any home inspection association, unless such language is inclusive of all national home inspection organizations. One home inspection association cannot be in any more advantageous position over any other. NACHI will also NOT support legislation which requires, as a condition of licensure, membership in any national, state, or local home inspection organization, or exclusive use of one education provider’s course curriculum.

NACHI’s position is also that the establishment of any state licensing or advisory board shall include balanced member representation from each of the national home inspection organizations which exist at the time said legislation is enacted. NACHI also believes that such advisory boards should specifically exclude members from any profession or organization that could benefit from the control of the home inspection profession, or where influence peddling could prove detrimental to inspectors or the public at large. For these reasons, NACHI will only support legislation where an advisory licensing board is comprised of members of the home inspection profession, and where members of the public at-large may have a single representative of the profession of professional engineering or architecture, but shall not include any member from real estate or construction industry. It is the position of NACHI that both professions are too closely tied to the home inspection industry, and could be influenced to recommend arbitrary measures which would put their professions in an advantageous position over members of the home inspection industry, and ultimately fail to serve the public interest. Further, in no instance shall a member of the public-at-large be directly involved with the inspection industry, nor shall any member serve in any capacity as a building code official. NACHI believes that such boards should act in an advisory nature, exclusively, and should have no specific authority to administrate, enact, modify, or enforce any provision of any home inspection licensing law, including acceptance or denial of licenses or applications for licensure, or educational providers and approval of course materials. NACHI believes these activities should remain in the control of state agencies and employees, who are ultimately accountable to the taxpayers of that state.

Representatives speaking on behalf of NACHI shall limit involvement to those areas as directed by the affected membership, in all but those instances where core elements of any proposed or enacted legislation are inconsistent with this policy. In all other instances, NACHI National’s involvement shall be at the request and direction of the majority of local members.

[John McKenna]

NACHI will NOT support legislation which we believe will hurt our members or the consumer

When has NACHI gone around supporting bad law? Never.

Where does it say NACHI has promised to be proactive and fight legislation
before and after it passes into law?

[Frank M. Carrio, CMI]

Originally Posted by jbushart

...some of whom actually belong to this association, by the way.

The all ASHI licensing board in Kansas has to choose a test for granting licenses in their state. Of course, as we know, it will be the NHIE.

The claim that is used in selling this test to the various states is that it is "psychometrically evaluated".

We know that before ASHI first turned the test over to the folks who now manage it for them, they paid a significant (I heard "tens of thousands") of membership dues to actually have an independent agency provide a psychometric evaluation. That was some time ago.
That's funny....... last year I sat in on a meeting with the local ASHI president and vice president when they were "pitching" the NHIE to a Senator.
{This was the Senator who sponsored the home inspectors licensing bill that these two ASHI inspectors wrote.}
Anyway...... these two "gentleman" stated that the NHIE took $2 million to write and to be "psychometrically evaluated"!
This is not a "misquote" they actually had the nerve to say that this was a $2 million test!

Since then, some new questions have been added to the test and some of the old questions have been dropped.
Jim,
you are 100% correct! There have been several articles in the "ASHI reporter/newspaper" written by well-established ASHI inspectors that have stated the same as you just stated.

Their claim to fame is that the NHIE is the most "current and up to date" "psychometrically valid" test that you will ever find!

Over the yeras... They have stated several times that this test is being updated.

I have a letter in my files from the Examination Board of Professional Home Inspectors {EBPHIE} inviting me to participate in their efforts to "update" the NHIE.

Are we to believe that this test has continued to be psychometrically evaluated for tens of thousands of dollars each time this has been done by the association that has had, at times, to be financially assisted by ASHI?
Just because it was "psychometrically evaluated" once does not mean that it has been "psychometrically evaluated" each and every time!

This test is being used, presently, in some states to deny access to jobs by citizens of that state wanting to be home inspectors....under the questionable premise that it is STILL psychometrically evaluated, in spite of the changes that have been made to it.
Just because it was "psychometrically evaluated" means what?
That it is the best test on the planet?

Do you think that there are grounds for a class action lawsuit that would challenge...and answer the question, once and for all...as to the validity and usefulness of the NHIE?

When I took the NHIE I had to schedule it three weeks in advance.

I paid my $225.00 and came down with the flu nine days before "Test Day".

So the bottom line is that I was extremely ill two weeks before the test and did not study.

On the day of the test I was miserable as I had a 103° fever.

I drove one hour to the testing center took the test, found it to be easy, in spite of my illness I passed it, and then drove an hour home.

Man O Man was I mad!

[Peter C. Russell]

I believe that regardless of whether or not it's still a psychometrically valid test the lawmakers to be will still look at this test as the best available, that is with the right amount of marketing/lobbying.

[Dan Bowers, CMI]

ASHI started heavily marketing this as soon as they got it set up and going. Its no secret they financially supported the test, Noel Zak and every aspect of it for several years. Then if you had ASHI board members in a certain states home inspector commission, they would heavily push it - as the ONLY test that could ..........................

Face it they've done a great job of pushing it.

AND no its not the only test out there and maybe not the best, but ASHI set it up to outmarket everyone else. Market Domination.

[Scott Patterson]

Originally Posted by jbushart

...Are we to believe that this test has continued to be psychometrically evaluated for tens of thousands of dollars each time this has been done by the association that has had, at times, to be financially assisted by ASHI?

This test is being used, presently, in some states to deny access to jobs by citizens of that state wanting to be home inspectors....under the questionable premise that it is STILL psychometrically evaluated, in spite of the changes that have been made to it.

Do you think that there are grounds for a class action lawsuit that would challenge...and answer the question, once and for all...as to the validity and usefulness of the NHIE?

Hi Jim,

The NHIE maintains it's psychometric validity through a continuous process under the direction of Pearson VUE, they are the exam administrator for EBPHI. Every year four new exams go online, those exams (questions) are based on the current RDS (Role Delineation Study). This is a study of the profession (What is the job of a home inspector) that is done every 3-5 years, or as the profession changes. A new RDS has just been completed and this has generated a new "Exam Blueprint" that will guide the exam for the next 3-5 years. Around 3,000 home inspectors from all of the associations and 1,100 independent or non-affiliated inspectors participated in the RDS.

It is a very expensive task to maintain such a quality exam and one that must be undertaken for the NHIE to maintian its reliability and defensibility. The annual cost just for maintaining the exam is in excess of $100,000 once you average in the cost of performing the RDS.

The overhead and operational cost for EBPHI is very small , except for the maintaining of the exam. With EBPHI being a 501-C6 so profit is not an issue. This is how the EBPHI is able to afford to keep the NHIE updated. The last time that ASHI provided any funding to EBPHI was back in 2001. Since that time EBPHI has been completely self funded. It would be great if any of the other associations would offer monetary grants to EBPHI, and make the NHIE "The Exam" for the profession. With additional funding EBPHI could expand into specialized testing, true third party certifications and more that would not have any association biases. Yes, ASHI started the NHIE but now the exam has been completely independent of ASHI for many years and is open to all associations. Right now ASHI and AII are the only two associations that use the NHIE for their membership exam. With the NHIE being used in around 80% of the licensed states, it would make sense for all of the various associations to use it for their exam as well.

As for the exam being hard or easy? This all depends on the individuals skill sets and knowledge of the subject matter. The more a person knows the easier the exam will appear to be, and conversely the less knowledge the person has the harder the exam will appear to be. It is up to the individual state to set their pass ratio. EBPHI will tell the state that the exam has a projected cut score of X amount. This is based on an Angoff analysis that is done by the psychometricians at Pearson VUE and Castle World Wide. Castle is another testing company that is used for the RDS in addition to Pearson VUE. They specialize in performing this type of study.

Scoring is not a simple process, the scoring of an exam has many variable. A good example is if the test taker is answering all of the easy question but missing the hard questions, then the exam will adjust to that persons ability. The same goes if the person is answering all of hard and easy questions with ease, the exam will adjust and the score will reflect that this. In other words not all of the questions are scored the same in the exam, this is called a weighted score system. It is scored in the same manner as the ACT or SAT college entrance exams. This is why you have a score range from 200 to 800 with passing being anything over 500.

Yes, it is complicated and this is why EBPHI hires professional testing companies to take care of the technical aspects of maintaining the NHIE.

Anyway, I hope that this helps to answer some of your questions. I seldom visit this board but I do have an alert set for Google when topics pop up about the NHIE.

Best to all,

Scott

[nwagner]

Originally Posted by Scott Patterson

Hi Jim,

The NHIE maintains it's psychometric validity through a continuous process under the direction of Pearson VUE, they are the exam administrator for EBPHI. Every year four new exams go online, those exams (questions) are based on the current RDS (Role Delineation Study). This is a study of the profession (What is the job of a home inspector) that is done every 3-5 years, or as the profession changes. A new RDS has just been completed and this has generated a new "Exam Blueprint" that will guide the exam for the next 3-5 years. Around 3,000 home inspectors from all of the associations and 1,100 independent or non-affiliated inspectors participated in the RDS.

It is a very expensive task to maintain such a quality exam and one that must be undertaken for the NHIE to maintian its reliability and defensibility. The annual cost just for maintaining the exam is in excess of $100,000 once you average in the cost of performing the RDS.

The overhead and operational cost for EBPHI is very small , except for the maintaining of the exam. With EBPHI being a 501-C6 so profit is not an issue. This is how the EBPHI is able to afford to keep the NHIE updated. The last time that ASHI provided any funding to EBPHI was back in 2001. Since that time EBPHI has been completely self funded. It would be great if any of the other associations would offer monetary grants to EBPHI, and make the NHIE "The Exam" for the profession. With additional funding EBPHI could expand into specialized testing, true third party certifications and more that would not have any association biases. Yes, ASHI started the NHIE but now the exam has been completely independent of ASHI for many years and is open to all associations. Right now ASHI and AII are the only two associations that use the NHIE for their membership exam. With the NHIE being used in around 80% of the licensed states, it would make sense for all of the various associations to use it for their exam as well.

As for the exam being hard or easy? This all depends on the individuals skill sets and knowledge of the subject matter. The more a person knows the easier the exam will appear to be, and conversely the less knowledge the person has the harder the exam will appear to be. It is up to the individual state to set their pass ratio. EBPHI will tell the state that the exam has a projected cut score of X amount. This is based on an Angoff analysis that is done by the psychometricians at Pearson VUE and Castle World Wide. Castle is another testing company that is used for the RDS in addition to Pearson VUE. They specialize in performing this type of study.

Scoring is not a simple process, the scoring of an exam has many variable. A good example is if the test taker is answering all of the easy question but missing the hard questions, then the exam will adjust to that persons ability. The same goes if the person is answering all of hard and easy questions with ease, the exam will adjust and the score will reflect that this. In other words not all of the questions are scored the same in the exam, this is called a weighted score system. It is scored in the same manner as the ACT or SAT college entrance exams. This is why you have a score range from 200 to 800 with passing being anything over 500.

Yes, it is complicated and this is why EBPHI hires professional testing companies to take care of the technical aspects of maintaining the NHIE.

Anyway, I hope that this helps to answer some of your questions. I seldom visit this board but I do have an alert set for Google when topics pop up about the NHIE.

Best to all,

Scott

Thanks for answering Jim's question, Scott.