The Relationship Between Mock Boards and Clinical Board Examinations in Dental Hygiene Education

Research on the effectiveness of clinical mock boards for future oral health professionals is conflicting and limited. Despite this, U.S. dental hygiene programs rely on clinical mock board experiences as essential components for preparing students for their clinical board examinations. Differences in programs' mock board characteristics may relate to board exam outcomes. The validity and reliability of mock boards can be questioned when deviations from exam criteria and procedures are made and grading mechanisms are not consistent. The aim of this study was to determine which mock board characteristics were critical in preparing students by exploring the relationships between programs' dental hygiene, local anesthesia, and restorative mock boards and their 2013-14 candidates' performance on the corresponding three Western Regional Examining Board (WREB) licensure exams. Of the 23 U.S. dental hygiene education programs in four states invited to participate, 15 agreed to do so, and 13 consented to have WREB provide their programs' test result data. The mock board coordinators provided data on characteristics of their programs' mock boards with an online questionnaire distributed in 2014. Scores calculated from the responses were compared to performance of the programs' candidates on the corresponding WREB exam. Of the 45 questionnaires (on three exams each x 15 programs), 33 were completed (73.3%). Significant relationships were found between candidates' WREB exam results and the mock boards' intensity scores, remediation, multiple experiences, and examiner calibration scores. The results of this study provide fundamental information about mock board characteristics that may assist educators in facilitating experiences to more effectively prepare students for these high-stakes exams.