The Health Professions Act (HPA) places the responsibility of public safety and monitoring of denturism in the province of Alberta with the College. As per the Denturists Profession Regulation, the College of Alberta Denturists must approve a registration examination that is one of the requirements leading to registration with the College. To enact this, the College has opted to administer a provincial registration examination.
The College of Alberta Denturists registration examination is a two-part process including an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) as the preferred method for assessing clinical competencies and a multiple choice question (MCQ) exam. A denturist must be competent in both the written and practical application of denturism and therefore tested on the combined abilities as aligned with the National Competency Profile for denturists.
The multiple-choice questions are based mostly on theory combined with practical components. For example, there are scenario-based questions (a description of a situation or condition is provided, and you must determine and provide a response) and removable partial denture design based questions. This theory portion is designed to assess critical thinking. There may be up to 240 questions on this portion of the exam.
The MCQ exam is administered as a multijurisdictional exam within Canada, by remote proctoring.
The MCQ occurs on one day with a morning and afternoon session. Each session is 3 hours each and is separated by a meal break.
For more information, please visit our examination information page.
The OSCE consists of 16 stations of varying length and complexity. Each station is designed to test a set of skills required of a denturist in Alberta as defined by the legislation and the National Competency Profile.
In the OSCE, candidates are required to integrate both their clinical knowledge and their communication skills. It is through this integration that the candidate demonstrates professional judgement. Candidates will require to know all facets of what a denturist encounters and knows, from complete to partial denture treatments (including design), to interprofessional, laboratory, and fabrication skill based knowledge.
The OSCE includes approximately six hours of testing with breaks and is administered at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta.
For more information, please visit our examination information page.
There are three pathways through which an individual may access the Alberta registration exam:
Should you have any questions about your eligibility, please contact the College.
An individual is eligible to apply for the registration examination once they have reasonable expectation that they will graduate or have graduated from an entry-to-practice program approved by the College or has been permitted to apply by virtue of provisional registration or direction of the Registrar or Registration Committee.
An eligible candidate may attempt each component a maximum of three times each.
A solid and legally defensible registration examination has many processes and requirements and is best overseen by a psychometrician. For this purpose, the College has contracted the services of a psychometric firm, with considerable experience in the field of denturism. The psychometric services rendered lead to the policy and processes use to develop the examination questions; exam construction; setting the minimum pass score for the examination’s components; determining when a candidate has aptly demonstrated within the examination process if they are successful or unsuccessful; and ongoing quality assurance with the examination questions and content. In addition to psychometric services required, an OSCE creates a layer of complexity that requires expertise and resources not common to a College. As a result, the College has also contracted Shift Space Inc. to manage the exam and ensure a fair and transparent process for exam candidates.
A candidate’s examination results will be available to them approximately eight weeks following the examination sitting.
If a candidate is successful on both parts of the examination, the candidate:
If a candidate is unsuccessful on one or both parts of the examination, the candidate:
An examination candidate has the right to appeal the result of their examination based on the examination process, not content. To do so, the candidate must lodge a formal appeal with the College (along with any applicable fees) within 14 days of the release of the examination results. The College will ensure that the appeal is considered and processed in an expeditious and fair manner. Please forward any appeals with supporting documentation to drichmond@abdenturists.ca. The College will be in touch to ensure appropriate processing of fees prior to your appeal being considered.
College of Alberta Denturists
405, 10408 124 Street NW
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
T5N 1R5
