Tennessee Licensing Requirements

[Nick Gromicko]

BTW: The NHIE is NOT a psychometrically valid exam and InterNACHI's entrance exam is.

www.nachi.org/aboutexam.htm

[Michael Larson]

Development and scoring of the NHIE adhere to psychometric standards set by relevant organizations, including the American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, National Council on Measurement in Education, US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and National Commission for Certifying Agencies.

[Nick Gromicko]

Using a scoring system that adheres to psychometric standards does not make it valid.

Read www.nachi.org/aboutexam.htm to learn what makes an exam valid.

[Michael Larson]

Originally Posted by gromicko

Using a scoring system that adheres to psychometric standards does not make it valid.

Read www.nachi.org/aboutexam.htm to learn what makes an exam valid.

The National Home Inspector Examination is both valid and reliable, two qualities required for legal defensibility:

1. Validity means the examination is able to measure what it is supposed to measure.
2. Reliability is an index of how accurately the examination measures a candidate's skills. A test must be both valid and reliable in order for it to be considered a "high-stakes" exam for purposes of public protection.

As a result of these safeguards, the National Home Inspector Examination accurately assesses each candidate's competence to carry out the required duties of a home inspector.




Just get er done Nick.

I'm not knocking the NACHI test but if the org won't do what it takes for acceptance, why not?

[Nick Gromicko]

if the org won't do what it takes for acceptance

??? Huh?

We've created the only psychometrically valid exam in the inspection industry. www.nachi.org/aboutexam.htm There is no other valid exam. We have the only one.

Validity means the examination is able to measure what it is supposed to measure.

Exactly. I refer you to the comments about lawn irrigation systems, codes, pools and spas in post #1 of this thread. Thank you for pointing out that an examination that doesn't measure what it is supposed to measure is not a valid exam. I've been saying it for years.

[Michael Larson]

NHIE

Compliance with accepted test development standards
Complies with public protection and employment testing standards

• American Educational Research Association
• American Psychological Association
• National Council on Measurement in Education
• Council on Licensure, Enforcement and Regulation
• National Organization for Competency Assurance



Well?

[Nick Gromicko]

Michael, that wouldn't make it valid either. Read your definition of validity in your own post #34, then read post #1, then ask yourself if measuring knowledge about lawn irrigation systems is "measuring what it is supposed to measure."

Michael, you've demonstrated that the NHIE is not valid. Thank you.

There is only one psychometrically valid exam in the inspection industry that I know of. There may be others, but I don't know of them.

[Michael Larson]

Nick,

We can 'round and 'round all night.

But only you know why you have never had the NACHI exam evaluated by recognized authorities for the purpose of gaining acceptance in the industry and acceptance by licensing authorities.

I'm sure this has been discussed repeatedly and it is my hope that as NACHI matures it will do what is needed to gain acceptance of it's entrance test.

[Nick Gromicko]

That is silly. What would a member of a home inspector licensing board know about evaluating an exam? Especially ours which has so many cutting-edge built-in technologies (developed by InterNACHI). We don't even know of any exam evaluation firms that could do it, let alone $25/meeting licensing board members.

InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination was developed by InterNACHI over many years, measures competence in home inspectors based on the critical job components and delineated skill sets from Standards of Practice, Code of Ethics, interviews, mock inspections, surveys, observations, group discussions, and data collected from some 430,000+ exams already taken. With the industry's most popular exams, quizzes and online education, combined with it's 255,000 page website and 450,000 post message board (both the largest in the industry), InterNACHI, the largest home inspection association in the world, collects and possesses more home inspection exam question/answer data and industry information than all other private and government entities combined. Unlike other home inspection examinations that may use a panel of experts (if at all) to review and validate each question once, InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination exploits its ongoing access to most every expert in the field. The questions/answers and any related performance issues stand the test of time under the industry scrutiny suffered in InterNACHI's message board, InterNACHI's open to all existing exams and quizzes, InterNACHI's online education, InterNACHI's exam prep tools, InterNACHI's expert trainers/educators, and InterNACHI's various professional committees. In essence, everything the industry knows, every question ever asked to test that knowledge, and every right and wrong answer ever given to those questions, are forever examined to verify technical accuracy and content validity. Other existing home inspector examinations admit that their content is based solely on one old role delineation study. Exploitation of InterNACHI's massive data collection abilities has permitted the build up of a supplemental bank of psychometrically sound items (questions) that are rotated into the InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination pool replacing obsolete items with items of similar content and difficulty. This is especially important in the inspection industry where the pool of items used in licensing exams is widely known and circulated. The massive culling of this industry-wide data also provides a vast, published item reference in support of legal defensibility. InterNACHI's exam system's built-in intelligence constantly and automatically calculates and recognizes absolutely everything from individual repeat improvement to overall industry knowledge trends.

InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination was developed using a blueprint based largely on InterNACHI's Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics with test methodology based primarily on Standards for Education and Psychological Testing by the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Council on Measurement in Education. InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination also relied on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's Uniform Guidelines for Employee Selection Procedures, the National Commission for Certifying Agencies' Standards for Accreditation, and other applicable standards.

The items in InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination are biased toward application, analysis, dynamic problem solving, and defect recognition where the exam taker demonstrates learning at a higher cognitive level by applying his/her knowledge on new material. New material includes a referenced photo or diagram or a situational/hypothetical stem question. InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination can be administered open book as it simulates the situations home inspectors face every day. Biasing InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination toward application, analysis, dynamic problem solving, and defect recognition gives the exam a high degree of validity for predicting inspector success in the field. Other existing home inspection licensing exams are based on recall. Such minimum standard exams do nothing more than test the exam takers ability to remember the correct answers and re-state facts.

Because InterNACHI is already the largest provider and administrator of home inspection exams and quizzes, inappropriate, poorly worded, ambiguous or questionable questions and/or answers are quickly recognized and revised or removed from future versions. In addition, new items are developed as the industry evolves. With exception of the lightly weighted content domain industry terms, InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination minimizes the effects of ancillary skills (such as terminology familiarity) by using commonly used phrases including synonyms where available. This also minimizes the effect of geographic bias so prominent in the inspection industry.

Each stem question in InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination is meaningful in and of itself. In other words, the questions are worded so that the exam taker could predict the correct answer after merely reading the question. For instance, Q. Radon... A. exposure increases one's chance of contracting lung cancer. would be worded as follows: Q. Radon exposure increases one's chance of... A. contracting lung cancer. (note, this is not an actual item found on InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination).

Negatively stated questions appear on InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination only when necessary. For instance, when technically correct, "should not slope downward" would be worded "should slope upward" on InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination. Negative stems that include terms such as "except for" or "does not include" are avoided in InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination.

Because use of "all of the above" and "none of the above" should not be used as distracters (incorrect answer options), InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination does not incorporate such answer options at all.

Because very few things in professional settings are "always" or "never" true, InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination uses such terms judiciously.

InterNACHI formally and informally validates every question and every answer choice (correct and incorrect). Each item is validated to ensure that the knowledge and/or skill tested by the item is essential for one to pass, validated to assure that the keyed correct answer is in fact correct without ambiguity, and validated to ensure that the incorrect answer options are in fact incorrect, but still plausible enough to provide distraction. Distracters (incorrect answer choices) found within InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination are not tricky or deceptive, but instead employ common errors.

As part of the psychometric analysis performed on the InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination, each question's pass/fail rate is calculated and recorded each time the question is answered so that the question difficulty is quantified over time. Regular checks comparing the answers given by experienced, skilled inspectors with those offered by inexperienced, unskilled inspectors verify that each question contributes to testing the exam taker's competency. Also, at the end of every exam session descriptive statistics custom to each exam taker are displayed along with a color pie chart depicting that particular exam taker's weaknesses.

Even though each item on InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination has only one correct or clearly best answer, InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination scoring system permits modest reward for next best answer choice and severe punishment for very wrong answer choice.

InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination scoring system is much more advanced than existing home inspector exams to the benefit of public safety. Each item is validated to determine the relative importance on assessing the exam takers knowledge and skill, as is each answer to each question. Then each is weighted accordingly. Not only are the questions in InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination weighted, the answers are as well in the sense that an exam taker is punished severely (in terms of score) for incorrectly answering questions that indicate that he/she could cause physical harm to the public, but not greatly rewarded (in terms of score) for correctly answering such questions. This same scoring is used for questions that test minimum competency. Likewise, difficult questions (questions that lie outside or nearly outside the scope of a home inspection) are weighted such that the exam taker is not severely punished for answering incorrectly. Other existing home inspector exam's questions and answers are all weighted the same in terms of scoring.

InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination was developed based on the American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association and the National Council on Measurement in Education's Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's Uniform Guidelines for Employee Selection Procedures, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination is the only valid exam in the inspection industry (that I know of). There might be others, but I don't of them.

[James H. Bushart]

Mike.....can you name a national association for home inspectors that does not have its critics, when it comes its use as a "credential"?

[Nick Gromicko]

Not only does InterNACHI have the ONLY valid inspector exam... InterNACHI is the undisputed leader in inspector education and has been awarded more state approvals and accreditation than all other sources combined. See right column of www.nachi.org/education.htm

[Michael Larson]

Originally Posted by gromicko

That is silly. What would a member of a home inspector licensing board know about evaluating an exam? Especially ours which has so many cutting-edge built-in technologies (developed by InterNACHI). We don't even know of any exam evaluation firms that could do it, let alone $25/meeting licensing board members.

They wouldn't of course .

And it doesn't make any difference. It has been and continues to be the accepted test of competence by those writing HI legislation of sitting on HI licensing boards..

The NHIE is adopted for competence assessment in nineteen states: Alabama (10/03) Mississippi (3/02) Alaska (7/03) New Jersey (6/02) Arizona (4/01) Oklahoma (5/03) Arkansas (7/03) Pennsylvania (12/01) Illinois (10/02) Rhode Island (7/01) Indiana (5/05) South Dakota (10/03) Kentucky (1/06) Tennessee (1/06) Louisiana (11/00) Virginia (7/02) Massachusetts (5/01) West Virginia (3/06) Wisconsin (1/00)


The NHIE has become the defacto standard for assessing one's competence to become a home inspector.

It doesn't have to be that way.

[Michael Larson]

Originally Posted by gromicko

Not only does InterNACHI have the ONLY valid inspector exam... InterNACHI is the undisputed leader in inspector education and has been awarded more state approvals and accreditation than all other sources combined. See right column of www.nachi.org/education.htm

Your second statement is off topic sir.

NACHI has and continues to be a great service to the industry.

The issue is the validity of the NACHI exam and it's acceptance or lack there of as a means to determine competence as recognized by state licensing boards and or legislators.

As part of the psychometric analysis performed on the InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination, each question's pass/fail rate is calculated and recorded each time the question is answered so that the question difficulty is quantified over time. Regular checks comparing the answers given by experienced, skilled inspectors with those offered by inexperienced, unskilled inspectors verify that each question contributes to testing the exam taker's competency.

Who is the psychomatrician?

[Nick Gromicko]

Oh, I didn't deny that some states use the NHIE. Read slower. I said the NHIE is not a valid exam and that you, Michael Larson, proved it again by posting the definition of "valid" in a thread where yet another inspector testified that the NHIE did not measure what it is supposed to (ie lawn irrigation systems and spas). The NHIE has never been valid. And a board made up of 3 home inspectors (two of which are members of a known no-entrance-requirement diploma mill), a lawyer (who does collection work), a home builder (who isn't licensed in his state), and a REALTOR... adopting it, won't ever make it valid either. A home inspector licensing board wouldn't know any more about exam development and validity than 5 high school cheerleaders would.

A psychomatrician, if such a thing exists, is not needed to develop a valid exam. For example, InterNACHI developed the only valid exam in an entire industry without one. Read www.nachi.org/aboutexam.htm Furthermore, our exam (actually each answer to each question asked) is psychmetrically monitored in live time. A quick example: if one of our questions was worded in such a way that exam takers who knew the information it was measuring began answering it incorrectly, we'd be alerted to it, very quickly. I don't know of any exam offered anywhere on earth that compares in live time, every answer to every question with every other answer ever given to that question, while it is being answered. In terms of exam development and administration, there are very few organizations in the world that are in our league.

Again, InterNACHI has the only valid exam in the inspection industry.

[Michael Larson]

Originally Posted by gromicko

Oh, I didn't deny that some states use the NHIE. Read slower. I said the NHIE is not a valid exam and that you, Michael Larson, proved it again by posting the definition of "valid" in a thread where yet another inspector testified that the NHIE did not measure what it is supposed to (ie lawn irrigation systems). The NHIE has never been valid.

Mr. Gromicko,

You can camp on any word you want to attempt discredit this discussion and me but it changes nothing.

This disturbing tendency of yours to attack the messenger rather than the message is unnecessary and not helpful.

The NHIE is already considered valid. The NACHI exam is apparently not.

This claim is made about the NACHI exam:

As part of the psychometric analysis performed on the InterNACHI's Online Inspector Examination,.....

I am only asking who did the analysis?

A psychomatrician, if such a thing exists, is not needed to develop a valid exam. For example, InterNACHI developed the only valid exam in an entire industry without one. Read www.nachi.org/aboutexam.htm

Yes they do exist and you are now dodging. LINK
That's your choice but it doesn't improve your apparent credibility IMHO.

I did some research last night and am now pretty confident that there is no other valid exam in the inspection industry. InterNACHI has the only one.

Great, share your research please.

Will you be sharing this research with state licensing boards in an effort get them to accept the NACHI exam as part of their licensing requirements?

I'm sorry if this makes you uncomfortable and as you know this discussion has been repeated a number of times over the years with no change in the status of the NACHI exam forthcoming.