Intern Written Exam successfully delivered in a year of change

Pharmacy interns around Australia have received their Intern Written Exam results and can now celebrate the end of a chapter and a difficult year.

This has been a significant achievement for both interns and our staff at the Australian Pharmacy Council (APC). In March, we weren't sure that the pandemic would allow any exams to proceed at all. Now we have over 1300 interns that are eligible to register as pharmacists when they are ready.

We delivered the Intern Written Exam in both test centres and remote formats. Candidates performed equally well irrespective of the delivery mode.

APC CEO, Bronwyn Clark says, 'Interns have had a huge year working through the pandemic. We hope they are all proud of themselves and can finally put their feet up to relax a little bit.'

'The online proctored exams were a big success. The similarities of scores between the two groups means we have an equal and fair process across the two delivery modes,' Ms Clark said.

The online proctors are vigilant, particularly when it comes to fraudulent behaviour. This is comforting for us but can be disappointing for candidates when they unintentionally do something that looks fraudulent. For example, candidates can't walk out of the room, look at their phone or grab things outside of the camera view. It's important candidates read all of PearsonVUE's information about fraudulent behaviour prior to sitting.

We also redeveloped both the Intern Written and the CAOP exams in a shorter format and applied a modern test theory (Rasch) to the construction and resulting of each of these exams.

All of this has engaged and challenged the talents of everyone in the Examinations Team and the APC team as a whole, subject matter experts, and members of the reference group.

We also owe this achievement to the leadership of our Executive Director Professional Services, Glenys Wilkinson, who led our dedicated staff through the development and delivery. And a big shout out to our psychometric brains trust, Peter Robinson, who re-designed the exam in record time to ensure this year's interns could complete their exams.

We are looking forward to another year of successful exam sessions. Dates for 2021 are now available.