Examination Experience Survey – preliminary results

Although the survey is still open, I wanted to discuss one particular trend that I find interesting.  (If you’ve already participated, thank you!  Please pass the link on to a colleague at another institution.  If you haven’t had a chance to fill it out, please do so.  The survey will remain open until 8/19).

One of the questions is “During your last examination, did you challenge any of the findings with the examiner?”  So far, 41% of you have challenged findings…

 

…and of those that did, almost 70% were successful getting the finding removed or modified in the final exit report…

I was surprised by a couple of things.  First, that so many of you actually challenged the examiners.  I think this is a direct result of proper examination preparation.  Fully 85% of you felt that your examination experience was either “pretty much as expected”, or “a few curve balls, but not bad overall”   This makes perfect sense…proper preparation leads to fewer findings, which leads to confidence that you’re doing the right things, and that makes it easier to stand up for what you are doing even though it may differ slightly from examiner expectations.  The key is in understanding the root cause of the examiner finding.

So I was also surprised that the number of successful challenges wasn’t even higher.  Even if your procedures differ from expectations, if you can demonstrate that you are still effectively addressing the root cause, you will usually have success getting the finding removed or modified in the final report.  This next statistic may be telling in that regard…even though 73% of you used an outside consultant to assist with exam questionnaire preparation, only 41% used a consultant to assist with post-exam responses.

Again, the survey will remain open until 8/19, and I’ll be posting additional findings shortly thereafter.  Stay tuned!

 

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