Opening Slide Image Description: CASLI logo on white background. Text: Star G. Grieser, Director of Testing, CASLI Announcements November 16, 2020.
Image Description: White woman with brown hair tied back and green shirt is sitting in front of a grey backdrop.
Transcript: Hi my name is Star Grieser and I am the Director of Testing for the Center for the Assessment of Sign Language Interpretation, CASLI.
This vlog is specifically for NIC candidates – National Interpreter Certification candidates pursuing certification from the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf
There’s a lot of information and a lot of updates related to the transition regarding CASLI Exam System we use to administer our exams plus news regarding the new iterations of the exam. We hope this video will address some of those questions and concerns.
Those who have passed their NIC Knowledge Exam will take the NIC Interview and Performance Exam. We have not been able complete the development of the new CASLI Generalist Performance Exam for Hearing Interpreters due to COVID-19. We were in the midst of filming when COVID-19 shut down our production. We discussed alternative plans with our psychometrician and since this event was never anticipated and we don’t have our new performance exam ready, we came up with this stopgap measure to administer the NIC Interview and Performance Exam until we are able to complete the CASLI Generalist Performance Exam for Hearing Interpreters. Once we are able to do that, we will swap out the two performance exams and provide updates to our candidates at that time. So again, those who have passed the NIC Knowledge exam have no gap test at this time. They will take the NIC Interview and Performance Exam. Those two exams complement each other, thus no need for a gap test.
The NIC Knowledge Exam that we’ve been administering for years will retire this December 20, 2020. We’ve been working on development of the new CASLI Generalist Knowledge Exam for the last two and a half years. At the same time, we were aware that NIC knowledge exam life cycle was approaching and as time for the exam to retire. We will be transitioning to the new CASLI Generalist Knowledge Exam which is slated to begin administration in January of 2021.
Purchase of NIC-Knowledge through your RID Member Account to cease on November 30, 2020. Right now, if you have not purchased the NIC knowledge exam you still can through your RID member portal until November 30th and then candidates will no longer be able to purchase their exam there. Instead, candidates will be able to purchase the new CASLI Generalist Knowledge Exam on the CASLI Exam System once that’s open for administration. We will be contracting with the company that we’ve been working with for the NIC-Knowledge, Scantron Corporation, for the administration of our new knowledge exam. They will be administering our CASLI Generalist Knowledge Exam our CASLI Exam System but using Scantron’s scheduling system and their test sites.
NIC-Knowledge and CASLI Generalist Knowledge Exam: Both knowledge exams assess a candidate’s knowledge for interpreting in typical community settings, so they essentially assess the same thing. The main differences between the NIC knowledge exam the new CASLI Generalist Knowledge Exam is that the NIC knowledge exam is an English-only multiple choice question exam and the new CASLI Generalist Exam is for both Deaf and hearing candidates is bilingual and comprised of both MCQ and case studies. Half the questions or items on the exam will be in ASL and a half will be in English. There are two parts for the new knowledge exam: the fundamentals of interpreting, which is the multiple-choice question exam, and the ethical decision making and cultural competency case studies exam, an exam with eight case studies assessing an interpreter’s decision-making abilities. These two tests together make up our new CASLI Generalist Knowledge Exam. Also, the approach to the new exam is also the knowledge that you need to apply to the actual interpreting work: what you need to apply to the interpreting work. Studying and preparing for the knowledge exam is actually about improving your interpreting knowledge and skills. Again, administration of that will start in January, 2021.
The CASLI Generalist Exam Content Outline and Preparation Guide is published on our website at CASLI.org. Also, if you have not created an account in the CASLI Exam System (CES) and go ahead and do so at CASLI.app. Create an CES account and look for the “Take a Sample Exam” feature on the left-hand side. There are four sample exams you can take, two of which are the CASLI Generalist Knowledge Exams. These sample exams are designed to help our candidates become familiar with the user interface of the CASLI Exam System and to learn how to navigate the instructions and navigate the exam so that when they go into take the actual exam, they’re already familiar with the exam platform and exam design.
You do not need to re-purchase an exam you have already purchased. If you have already purchased the NIC Knowledge Exam or your NIC interview and Performance Exam through your RID Member Account but you haven’t taken the exam through CES, you can go into your CES account and select “request an exam” which will tell us which exam you wish to purchase and then from there we will transfer the credit from your RID Member Account to your CES Account.
Other transition plans: Again, about gap tests… those who have passed their NIC knowledge exam do not need to take the gap test for the in the NIC interview and Performance Exam as there is no new performance exam ready yet.
When we do complete the CASLI Generalist Performance Exam for Hearing Interpreters, we will provide another update regarding transition but briefly, when we do release the new performance exam, candidates who have passed the NIC-Knowledge exam will have a gap test. For now, those who passed the NIC knowledge exam will take the NIC interview and performance exam.
The gap test is only for transition between the current or retired iterations of the knowledge exam to the new performance exam. The gap test is only for filling in those missing KSAs between different exam iterations. If the exams are within the same iteration e.g. the NIC Knowledge exam and NIC Interview and Performance Exam, or CASLI Generalist Knowledge and CASLI Generalist Performance, then there’s no gap test.
If a person takes the new CASLI Generalist Knowledge Exam after January 2021 then for the performance exam, since we are still administering the NIC interview and Performance Exam, those candidates will take the NIC Performance exam. That means of the NIC Interview and Performance, they will take only the performance portion of that test. The ethical portion is covered by our Ethical Decision Making and Cultural Competencies Case Studies exam, thus, they will not need to take the ethical interview portion of the NIC I&P exam. When we do a complete the new CASLI Generalist Performance Exam for hearing interpreters, we will make those announcements and then will also be explaining about the gap test between the NIC knowledge exam the new CASLI Generalist Performance Exam for Hearing Interpreters. Keep in mind, that gap test will be the Ethical Decision Making and Cultural Competency Case Studies. Also, those who take the new CASLI General Knowledge Exam and pass both parts will take the new performance exam once it is ready. There will be no gap test for those people because those exams complement each other and there are no gaps in KSAs between those exams.
I hope this explains some of questions or concerns that you may have. If you have any other questions, please first look at our website CASLI.org for more information. If you don’t find the information that you’re looking for there and you still have a question contact me directly my email is Directir@CASLI.org or for questions related to your individual candidate account or testing cycle expiration, RID member account, or CES account, please contact our testing coordinator Sean Furman Testing@CASLI.org. He will help you with individual account questions
We wish you all the best on your testing and certification journey and please feel free to contact us at anytime! Thank you and best wishes!