The SSH Certification Council is pleased to announce the launch of new CHSE and CHSOS exams to match the blueprints that resulted from the recent international practice analysis.

The new CHSE and CHSOS exams will launch January 20, 2024. 

These exams are the result of the practice analysis that began in November 2022 and culminated in the examination blueprints released September 2023. Test questions on the new exams have been written and compiled with existing high-performing questions. 

Before the launch, current examinations and examination blueprints will continue until Nov. 30, 2023. At that time, we will suspend testing until the launch of the new forms. This is to encourage a larger-than-usual number of candidates to test in January and February. The intended result will be to gather more candidate impact data going into our standard setting. When determining cut scores for the exams, we look at those actual candidate responses. The more candidates who test during these data collection months, the more data we can use to assist us in determining a fair, reliable, and valid cut score.

Exam Results will NOT be released immediately

In order to ensure that the new exam forms are scored fairly as a result of the new examination blueprints, we will need to hold all of the pass/fail results following the initial released of the new exams. The data from all exams completed will be evaluated by Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and psychometrically analyzed by our testing vendor partner to ensure that the exam results are fair and equitable. This is a critical performance element that must be completed to be accredited as a certifying entity. This activity occurs once every five years.

We expect that the pass/fail results following the launch of the new forms will be held until April 1^st, 2024.  All candidates will be notified of their pass/fail results as soon as the SMEs and our testing vendor have finalized the results. 

We know that you do not want to wait for your results, but we have to do this in order to ensure that the exams are fairly scored to the new exam blueprints and to comply with the standards set by our accreditation agency (The National Commission for Certifying Agencies).

Preparing for the exams

To begin preparing to take your exam if you are testing on or before January 20^th, 2024, please visit the SSH Certification page and begin by reviewing the updated blueprints.

Key points:

• The new examination blueprints are NOT drastically different from the old blueprints

• The new examination blueprints HAVE been reorganized (See CHSE and CHSOS). Duplicate items have been removed and each individual KSA has been written to more clearly indicate the expected level of knowledge or performance at the two-year competency level.

• Some items have been removed completely.

• There are a VERY limited number of new concepts, less than four or five per each examination blueprint.

• The number of test questions remains the same at 115.

• The amount of time to sit for the exam remains the same at 2 hours (3 hours for ESL).

Again, the new exams are NOT based on completely new material, but rather, differ only slightly from the original exams.

REMINDER: Exams are written to the two-year competency level. They should be answered within that framework, regardless of the candidate’s years of experience beyond that.  We share this to reassure you, and to encourage you that these are not wholly new exams with very different content. 

Implications for Certification Renewal

Certification renewal is completed by submitting Continuing Professional Development (CPD) activities in the system.  There are no new domains as a result of the practice analysis, but the domain names have been revised.  The recertification system will handle the conversion of continuing professional development activity credits into the new domains.

What this means to you for certification renewal:

• Renewals already in progress:  On January 20, 2024, any CPD activities entered under the previous domain names will be converted to the new domain names.  You will need to login to the recertification system after this date to make sure that your items are listed in the most appropriate domain. 

• Renewals will still require at least one item in each domain, so it is important to make sure that your CPD activities include at least one item in each domain. 

Please email us at director@simcertification.com with any of your questions.  We will be happy to answer them!