Guiding Candidate Assessment Preparation

The information available here can help faculty members who are assisting candidates in preparing to take an OAE assessment.

An academic advisor might suggest to a candidate that they take the following steps in preparing to take an OAE assessment:

1. Begin by completing the Assessment Preparation Worksheet, where candidates record their academic background, reason for testing, licensure requirements, and testing history, and complete a checklist of preparation steps for testing.
2. Complete the mapping the assessment framework to courses taken activity for the assessment the candidate will be taking. This activity involves the candidate reviewing the assessment framework and their coursework to date and recording on a worksheet whether their courses have covered the knowledge and skills described by each assessment competency.
3. Meet with their academic advisor to review the completed worksheets and assessment preparation steps taken to date, and to obtain assistance in evaluating their readiness to test.

When meeting with a candidate to review the completed material listed above, an academic advisor may wish to take the following steps:

1. Review page 1 of the completed Assessment Preparation Worksheet to learn the candidate's academic background, reason for testing, and testing history.
2. Review the completed worksheet for mapping the assessment framework to the courses the candidate has taken to determine if they have completed sufficient coursework to take the assessment. If there are competencies for which the candidate has not studied the knowledge and skills being assessed, the advisor may wish to recommend that the candidate take additional courses before testing.
3. Review pages 2 and 3 of the completed Assessment Preparation Worksheet to guide the candidate in gathering and using OAE preparation materials and, if needed, learning or reviewing assessment content and assessment-taking strategies.

OAE Preparation Materials for Candidates

In addition to the processes described above, advisors may wish to review with candidates the official OAE preparation materials. These materials include general assessment-taking strategies and sample assessment questions for every OAE assessment.

For some assessment fields, full-length practice assessments are also available. Candidates may purchase practice assessments for themselves directly on this website. Additionally, institutions may purchase practice assessment vouchers for their candidates by submitting a Practice Assessment Voucher Order Form .