The National Dental Hygiene Certification Board exists so that Canadian Regulators, acting in the public interest, have testing mechanisms for assessing current dental hygiene competencies for a worthwhile investment of our resources
The NDHCB is responsible for the development, administration, scoring and results reporting of the National Dental Hygiene Certification Exam.
Based on successful completion of the Exam – a written examination to assess a candidate’s readiness for entry-to-practice per nationally established practice and education standards, the Board issues the National Dental hygiene certificate.
The exam is 4 hours in total. Part I is 2 hours and Part II is 2 hours. There is a compulsory 15 min break in between.
It consists of 200 items in total, of which 20 are experimental questions that are tested for statistics gathering only (these items will not count towards the final score).
There are only multiple-choice questions in the NDHCE. Only one of the possible answers choices is correct.
20-30% of the questions are case-based items.
70-80% of the questions are independent items.
Case study test items consist of a description of a client in a clinical or community health situation followed by a series of three to six multiple-choice test items. The description in the case study will be entirely written information and may include radiographic material.
