2022 RETA Breeze March-April

RETA TESTING CORNER NO. 29

RESPONDING TO FALSE CLAIMS ABOUT RETA EXAMS Dr. Ron Rodgers, RETA’s Psychometrician (testing expert) and ANSI Accreditation Manager

A NSI 17024 STANDARDS require that RETA must correct misinformation and respond to false claims about CARO and CIRO to protect the integrity and fairness of its exams. One refrigeration training program includes several false claims on its website. The program claims that the recent decline in CIRO pass rates is “an outlier” because “the only thing that has changed is the test” and that they “have the highest percentage of pass rate on this exam in the industry.” Their claims are totally false because: 1. RETA updated CIRO in 2020 based on ratings of industry needs in a 2019 CIRO Practices Survey of experienced operators, supervisors and managers. 2. RETA does not publish data to support comparisons of pass rates or scores for individual programs – precisely to discourage such unwarranted claims. ANSI 17024 Standards require that RETA must revalidate test content every few years to match industry practices. The 2019 survey redefined content areas based on RETA’s Industrial Refrigeration Book 2 (IR-2) and Basic Electricity I and II (BE-1 and BE-2). Survey results created ratings that determined the number of scored questions in each content area. Each test also includes 10 unscored pilot questions.

RETA informed candidates of these changes in the 2020 CIRO Study Guide before new CIRO exams were published. Readers of this column in the RETA Breeze also were informed of these changes before new CIRO exams were introduced in July 2020. The program that claims to have the best scores in the industry states on their website

that they did not update their instruction or materials. It is no surprise then that their CIRO candidates had lower pass rates than the average for all RETA centers in seven of eight content areas and the second lowest pass rate among programs that offer review classes. Results are shown for Kryterion (KTN) and RETA test centers.

CIRO Performance by Content Area July 2020 – March 2022

KTN Centers 207 attempts

RETA Centers 159 attempts

Number of Qs Scored

Average Score

Pass Rate

Average Score

Pass Rate

CIRO Content Areas

Safety Standards and Procedures

76.2

71%

66%

66%

19

Electricity

13

61.9

29%

58.9

25%

Heat Flow

14

73.5

66%

71.5

56%

Monitoring System Performance Valves, Controls & DX Systems Liquid Overfeed & Flooded Systems Two-Stage/Secondary Coolant Systems

65.8

46%

63.4

40%

19

64.7

38%

62.9

32%

19

63.2

26%

62.1

24%

19

63.0

26%

62.2

23%

13

Evaporator Defrost

9

74.5

60%

74.6

60%

Totals

125

67.6

48%

65.6

36%

28 RETA.com