October 2005 ISSUE
POTPOURRI
PPX Exam Passes National Survey
APEGGA’s delivery of the National Professional Practice Exam on behalf of 10 engineering and geoscience associations across Canada is earning high marks, an initial review of a survey of professionals indicates.
During the first half of 2005, the National Professional Practice Examination Advisory Committee undertook a validation survey to gauge how suitable the exam syllabus is to the day-to-day professional practice of individual engineering and geoscience practitioners. The NPPEAC survey consisted of 37 questions, based on the current exam syllabus topics.
Respondents were asked to consider the relevance of each topic to the practice
of their profession, and to the ethical issues and challenges that they may encounter.
They rated each topic on a four-point scale, ranging from “useless — should
be deleted from the syllabus" to “essential — must know.” Respondents
were also invited to write unstructured responses to each of the questions.
A total of 1,557 professional members from the 10 associations across Canada
responded to the survey — 1,225 professional engineers (78.9 per cent)
and 299 professional geoscientists (19.2 per cent).
An initial review indicates that most respondents considered the topics in the current syllabus to be either “essential — must know" or “generally important and useful for members to know.”
The National Professional Practice Examination Advisory Committee is made up of the 10 professional associations — engineering only, combined engineering and geoscience, and geoscience only — which use the National Professional Practice and Ethics Exam to verify that practitioners entering professional engineering and professional geoscience have an appropriate knowledge and understanding of professional and ethical obligations.
“Congratulations to Dr. Milt Petruk, P.Eng., Manager of Examinations,” said Executive Director and Registrar Neil Windsor, P.Eng. “Once again APEGGA has shown great national leadership, thanks to his expertise, experience and untiring efforts.”