Fisdap Entrance Exam: Paramedicselected product title

Use the Entrance Exam to help select and admit the prospective paramedic students with the best chances of success in your paramedic program. Or, use the Entrance Exam as a diagnostic tool at the beginning of your paramedic class to assess incoming students’ strengths and weaknesses.

The Entrance Exam (EE) was created by and for EMS educators and is different from other entrance exams because it is unique to EMS and includes a personality assessment. The exam is comprised of two sections: a cognitive test and a personality inventory to test students’ affective domain.

Cognitive Test
Anatomy and Physiology
Math
Reading Comprehension (at the 9th and 11th grade levels)
EMT (Knowledge, Application, and Problem Solving)

Affective Test
In collaboration with Dr. Billy James, a clinical psychologist, we adapted 30 items from the M5-50 for the personality inventory. The M5-50 is a valid and reliable personality item set designed for the evaluation of law enforcement personnel. Three areas, specifically agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism, are particularly strong indicators for identifying the ideal paramedic students.

• Agreeableness: How well an individual gets along with others (also described as kindness, cooperativeness, or sympathy for/consideration of others).
• Conscientiousness: Attention to detail and understanding of right versus wrong. This element may also have utility in predicting elements of empathetic behaviors.
• Neuroticism: The inability to accept failures and deal with stress. Neurotic people tend to have more of a depressed mood.

For EMS, by EMS
The EE was created in response to EMS educators’ desire for an EMS-specific entrance examination for prospective paramedic students. Existing admittance exams for allied health professions were not necessarily predictive of paramedic student readiness.

In October of 2011, a panel of subject matter experts, which included a number of veteran Paramedic educators, joined together to begin creating the exam. They discussed the common areas of weakness seen in their own classrooms and developed ideas for how to best evaluate prospective paramedic students.

After these initial discussions, the conversation was opened up to the broader EMS educational community. 150 EMS educators responded to a survey about the EE’s subject matter and contributed additional ideas and opinions.

The team also utilized the expertise of several consultants, including paramedic educator and forensic psychologist, Dr. Billy James, psychometrician Luke Stanke, and reading comprehension specialist Samuel Tanner.

Ready to get started? Call Fisdap at 651-690-9241 for your free demo.