May 4, 2022—There are over a quarter of a million individuals who have certifications from the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence.
This year, ASE celebrates its 50 year anniversary. In recognition of this and their development process for certifications, Trish Serratore, senior vice president of Communications for ASE, recently released an essay covering this very topic.
ASE certification begins with one or more of the 57 tests available. Individuals must be retested every five years in order to remain certified.
According to Serratore, test questions are created at workshops with input from around 10 to 20 service professionals, and the workshops are separated for each certification test.
Questions correspond to relevant job tasks and those who develop the questions review and modify the content of tasks as necessary.
There are no trick questions allowed, nor can the questions focus on one manufacturer. Each question is assured to have just one correct answer.
Once the questions are developed, they are accepted on a "pre-test" basis in which they are implemented into ASE tests in order to accurately gauge the performance of the question. In these cases, test takers do not know which questions count and which ones are in development, so this means that they will answer the questions genuinely.
If the question performs well enough, it may be included as an official test question or could be used in a workshop setting.
The ASE continues to monitor questions after they are implemented, and phases out questions as they become outdated.
"The need for quality and dependable vehicle service and repair continues to grow as the average age of the vehicle on the road increases," Serratore wrote in the essay. "Combined with the complexity and sophisticated technology within new vehicles creates a greater demand for qualified technicians."
