MECHANIC CONNECTION
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December 2013 | Counterman
fessionals. We therefore shouldn’t confuse the roles of ASE with those of the Automotive Service Association (ASA) and other trade associations. While ASE provides competency testing, ASA and similar organizations are geared toward addressing industry issues like shop and mechanic licensing, business and personnel management and creating a more positive public image for our industry. Both efforts deserve our wholehearted support. Other issues concern the testing methods used by ASE to certify competency. Many technicians claim that a hands-on test would better represent a technician’s working knowledge. Speaking as a former educator and as one who has taken both hands-on and multiple-choice tests, I believe that the multiplechoice test wins hands-down. The efficacy of hands-on testing is obviously limited by the technician’s familiarity with the tooling and with the vehicle application. A Volvo technician, for example, might experience difficulties diagnosing a Chevrolet check engine light problem because the real-world tooling and vehicle configurations can be markedly different. The other, and most important, issue with handson testing is how effectively it measures the technician’s skills in solving abstract problems. With hands-on testing, the technician must diagnose an actual vehicle, with which he might not be familiar, whereas multiple-choice testing allows the test writers the luxury of designing a “composite” vehicle that represents the most common aspects of current automotive design. Again, speaking as a former educator, multiple-choice tests can be designed to ask questions and therefore test skills in a more strategic manner than does hands-on. On a more real-world level, most of us know some very strategic questions that we might ask a job applicant during a job interview. If that person has the appropriate knowledge
and experience, he will reply to each specific question with the desired answer. Last and most important, a multiple-choice test lends itself very well to forming a test bank of questions dealing with the same content, but stated in different ways. This allows the test writer to reduce the probability of cheating by composing multiple versions of the same test. It also allows the test writer to “finetune” the test bank by using statistical analysis to verify the effectiveness and technical validity of each test question. The test also can be easily updated, question-byquestion, to meet current technical standards. While it’s entirely possible that, while a small minority of mechanics might be better test-takers than they are mechanics, the overall validity of the ASE test series is difficult to challenge. The ASE Yardstick One constant in the automotive service industry is the need for establishing a threshold standard for measuring auto mechanic competencies. Since 1972, that standard has been the ASE certification tests. Of course, auto manufacturers often require application-specific testing for their technician to ensure the service-ready status needed to perform new vehicle warranty repairs. But the limitations of application-specific testing are obvious due to these competencies not readily transferring to other nameplates and systems. At the personal level, I sincerely believe that ASE provides the “yardstick” we need to establish at least one standard we need to make our automotive service industry more professional and more responsive to advancing technology. Without ASE, we’ve returned to the dark days of 1971, when we lived in a “Tower of Babel” regarding technical competency. With ASE, we have only to look forward to a brighter and more prosperous future. CM