ASHP Board Certification Resources Field Testing FAQs

What is field testing?

All ASHP’s Board Certification products that offer BPS Continuing Pharmacy Education (CPE) recertification credit have assessments that must be passed to earn credit. To ensure that the questions in ASHP’s recertification assessments meet our high standards, we ask board-certified pharmacists to field test our content. Field tester responses also help to set the pass point for exams. Volunteer pharmacists are given access to a portion of our learning activities in development and asked to assess their quality and usefulness in developing the competencies necessary for practice in the specialty area. We rely on the expertise of board-certified pharmacists to maintain the high standards of BPS and ASHP and to pay it forward to the health system pharmacist community.

What is expected of field testers?

ASHP Board Certification staff will occasionally reach out to board-certified pharmacists requesting they volunteer their time and expertise to field test a portion of our learning activities in development. Field testers are given access to learning materials (i.e., recorded slide presentations, handouts, and/or published articles) for a small number of topics and the associated recertification questions for those topics. We ask our volunteers to use the learning materials, answer the questions, and give feedback on the quality of the learning activities. The amount of time to complete field testing is approximately 2-3 hours.

What do I get out of volunteering to be a field tester?

Field testers who are under the new BPS Continuing Professional Development (CPD) framework for recertification of their board certification (starting with pharmacists certified in 2024) may use this activity for CPD credit. All field testers for ASHP Board Certification products will receive a thank you letter that may be included in their professional portfolio. ASHP will also publish a list of all Board Certification field testers on the website annually, to publicly acknowledge volunteers for their contributions. Finally, field testers can take personal pride in the fact that they are supporting the health system pharmacist community by furthering the profession and maintaining the high standards of BPS and ASHP.

If I field test a certain product, can I still buy it and use it for CPE credit?

Yes, you are still eligible to use any of our recertification products for CPE credit if you participate in field testing the product.