Frequently Asked Questions

The four stackable certificates are Foundations of Healthcare Professions, Essentials of Healthcare Practices, Human Structure, Function and Disease A and Human Structure, Function and Disease B.  Each certificate exam only covers a specific portion of the National Health Science Standards and Objectives and when combined equal the content covered by the National Health Science Certificate. Health Science students who have successfully earned all four certificates and desire the National Health Science Certificate will be responsible for applying to NCHSE/YouScience for their NHSC Certificate.

The cost of each stackable certificate listed above will be $10 per exam for NCHSE members, $12 for nonmembers. 

NCHSE along with YouScience offers over twenty three content/occupation specific (end of course) health science certificate exams.

Follow the steps on the NCHSE/YouScience test administration site. Register Here

Read the simple guides on the support page to learn how to register, create a test code, and proctor an exam.

Yes, there are two versions of a 32-question sample exam. You can find a PDF version of the sample exam and associated key here. HERE  You can also access a fully functional online version of the sample exam once you are registered and authenticated as a proctor in the YouScience system.

YouScience provides a standard report that measures student growth between the Pre and Post NHSA exams.

The National Health Science Certificate may now be proctored by the health science teacher/instructor as authorized by each state’s designated health science education authority. All health science proctors must adhere to the You Science proctor agreement criteria found HERE.

For security reasons, every proctor is authenticated by their state or district’s office of education.

If YouScience has not previously authenticated your employee status you can still register, but you will not receive your username and password until your district or state has authenticated your status. This can take multiple days depending on the availability of your district or state staff.

The exam is not constructed as a timed exam. For administration reason, the exam is set to time out after 90 minutes. Over 98 percent of candidates finish within the allotted time. Time accommodations are made for students with documented IEPs.

YouScience and NCHSE recommend getting students registered at least 24-48 hours prior to the actual exam date.  However, last minute student registrations can also be performed by the proctor or student, by clicking on the “register student” button located on the student login screen.

It is important to ensure that the exam experience is consistent for all students throughout the country. Therefore, the test must be initiated and completed during one class session.

The exam can be scheduled over a series of days allowing different cohorts of students to sit for the exam.

Students are allowed to retake the post-test as needed and will be charged at the same fee as the initial assessment. The policy for certificate retakes is determined by each state and not by NCHSE.

Students don’t need to provide their own calculators during the exam. The new testing platform incorporates both a calculator and scrap paper for easy student use.

They are reviewed annually.

The pass score for the National Health Science Certificate and the NCHSE four stackable certificates is currently 70 percent. However, the life cycle for each certificate differs depending upon several factors including number of test forms, test volumes, exposure, and item rotations. For these and other reasons, passing scores are subject to change without notice. 

NCHSE will provide only national certificate data to member states. State and local program data will be accessed through each state’s health science lead director.