Trainee Class Suggestions

[tom baker]

I have instructed hundreds of classes for continuing ed for electricians. Now I am going to give classes for electrical trainees, the class must have a test with a test, 70% correct required to pass.
This will be an 8 hour class, I'll use material by Mike Holt.
I was considering 6.5 hours instruction, 1 hour to take the test, open book, and 30 minutes to grade and review the answers.
Whats a good number of questions? 25, 50??

 

[cpal]

open book or closed book??

essay or multiple choice questions???

 

[hockeyoligist2]

JM2CW! In SC the JM is 80 questions 3 hour test, the master is 100 questions 4 hour, open book (NEC only) You may want to base the questions and times on the actual tests (in your state)? So it gives the feeling of the actual test?

 

[tom baker]

Open or closed book? Good question. Our state test is open book.
Questions would be multiple choice. I would go open book, but suggest they work without book first.

 

[Rockyd]

When I sat for the EA in Washington, there were 200 questions in three hours (open book, like there was extra time)! Five hours in the afternoon for a bunch of calculations. I believe the old JW test was a four hour gig. Course that was back when N.A.I. was the testing agency.

 

[sparkzilla]

Tom, do you have a WA law/code reference that addresses the class and testing requirement? My employer and coworkers will be very interested. Thanks.

 

[Pierre C Belarge]

Tom
Is this a test prep class?
I am not too sure what you are trying to accomplish with this class.

 

[cpal]

Open or closed book? Good question. Our state test is open book.
Questions would be multiple choice. I would go open book, but suggest they work without book first.

when students are prepared I figure 3 minutes for a open book MC question. If it's closed book a minute per quest is a good exercise. The difficulty of the question plays a huge part in seting the number of questions for timed tests

 

[sparkzilla]

Washington State has required 8 hours of continuing education per year for electrical license holders for license renewal. Starting in 2007, they are requiring the same for electrical trainees. This is the first I heard of testing for a CEU class. Will it be the same for license holders?

 

[brian john]

Tom:

I have always been in favor of open book. I base this upon the belief that if I have any questions regarding my work I would look it up, you can?t memorize it all. But if you know were to look, you have IMO have learned something. Typically open book questions would be a bit harder. If there are some basic themes these folks should know you could do a mixture of open, closed book.

25 questions should about be right based upon the time frame.

I actually prefer teaching higher level classes, when I taught the basic classes many of the students were there because it was a requirement of their job and many of them were not into it. The higher level classes the students are usally there by choice.

 

[tom baker]

This is for trainee only to renew. This is in 296-46B section 970 in the version effective Dec 31, 2006. Electrical CE requirement is still 8 hours per year, but the questions for internet test went from 270 for 8 hours down to 200. Most tests are approved prior to 2005 with 100 questions.

 

[finhead]

I would use 25 to 30 questions, depending on the number of questions that involve calculations.

Brian