In recent years, several certifying organizations have begun offering “longitudinal assessments” where relatively small sets of items are administered at regularly spaced intervals over an extended period of time (e.g., 15 items every 3 months for a period of four years). Longitudinal assessments typically have the dual purposes of making summative recertification decisions and promoting learning and knowledge retention. Some common mechanisms for helping participants achieve learning and knowledge retention that go beyond what is possible in traditional proctored exams include (1) providing immediate feedback and educational resources after each item to facilitate learning, (2) providing additional opportunities to interact with content identified as knowledge gaps within a previous testing interval, and (3) requiring participants to retrieve knowledge across regularly spaced testing intervals. Longitudinal assessment takes advantage of the ability to customize future assessment content for each individual based on previous performance data to maximize content relevance and to address identified knowledge gaps.

In this presentation, two national certifying organizations with relatively mature longitudinal assessment programs will discuss design elements intended to promote learning and knowledge retention. More importantly, presenters will also share analysis results that evaluate whether their longitudinal assessments appear to be working as intended.