ML24208A080
| ML24208A080 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 07/26/2024 |
| From: | Mcpherson J Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Download: ML24208A080 (1) | |
Text
Operator Licensing Examination Performance Trends between Fiscal Years 2014 - 2023 The following 17 graphs illustrate the results of the initial operator licensing examinations (applicants taking retake exams are excluded). The graphs provide historical data of the performance of reactor operator (RO) and senior reactor operator (SRO) license applicants in both the written examination and the operating test. The graphs are presented based on the fiscal year (FY) in which the examination was administered for each of the last 10 FYs.
Reactor operator overall pass-rates have remained consistent over the past decade (Figure 4),
whereas senior reactor operator overall pass-rates have steadily increased over the same time period (Figure 10), which is primarily due to better SRO performance on the operating test portion of the examination (Figure 9). Many factors may cause a change in applicant performance, including changes to examination standards (NUREG-1021) or to a facility licensees initiative to have more selective and stringent training programs. The performance of RO and SRO applicants have displayed relatively consistent characteristics: for ROs, in recent years, their overall pass-rate is generally around 90% or better (Figure 4) and their average grades are between 87% and 91% (Figure 1), and for SROs, their written overall average grades are between 90% and 89% (Figure 5).
Figure 5 and Figure 6 show that SRO applicants perform slightly better on the overall written examination (i.e., driven by the reactor operator section) than they perform on the SRO-only section of the examination. Figure 7 and Figure 8 indicate that the overall SRO written examination pass-rate is driven by the SRO-only section pass-rate.
The operating test pass-rate is approximately 98% to 100% for RO license applicants (Figure 3) and approximately 96% to 100% for SRO license applicants (Figure 9).
For each FY, Figure 11 and Figure 12 show the percentage of the total number of examinations that had zero failures, one failure, two failures, etc. The charts illustrate that 70% or more of the RO and SRO written examinations over the past 10 years have had zero failures. Overall, over 90% of written examinations result in two or fewer failures.
Figure 13, Figure 14, and Figure 15 shows the number of written examinations authored by NRC (N) or the facility licensee (F) per FY and shows the pass-rates for written, operating, and overall, respectively.
Figure 16 provides written examination failure rate, operating test failure rate, and the overall failure rate for SRO and RO applicants combined over the past 10 fiscal years.
As shown in Figure 17, RO and SRO license applicants fail the written examination portion more commonly than the operating test for the past 10 FYs.
Errata: Previously Published Examination Performance Trends Prior to Fiscal Year 2023 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) strives to ensure that all information presented to the public is complete and accurate. To ensure that the NRC is meeting this goal, an audit was conducted on the operator licensing database for the past 10 FYs. The audit revealed that out of 4,413 entries in the database for this period, 192 contained data that was incorrectly recorded, resulting in an error rate of 4.4 percent. After correcting the entries, the trends seen in previous years were not adversely affected. All figures in this report reflect the corrected data.
2 List of Figures Figure 1. Reactor Operators Written Exam Average Grades....................................................... 3 Figure 2. Reactor Operators Written Examination Pass-Rates.................................................... 3 Figure 3. Reactor Operators Operating Test Pass-Rates............................................................. 4 Figure 4. Reactor Operators Overall Pass-Rates......................................................................... 4 Figure 5. Senior Reactor Operators Written Examination Overall Average Grades..................... 5 Figure 6 Senior Reactor Operators Written Examination, SRO-Only Section Average Grades... 5 Figure 7. Senior Reactor Operators Written Examination Overall Pass-Rates............................. 6 Figure 8. Senior Reactor Operators Written Examination, SRO-only Section Pass-Rates........... 6 Figure 9. Senior Reactor Operators Operating Test Pass-Rates................................................. 7 Figure 10. Senior Reactor Operators Overall Pass-Rates............................................................ 7 Figure 11. Reactor Operators Written Examination Historical Performance................................. 8 Figure 12. Senior Reactor Operators Written Examination Historical Performance..................... 8 Figure 13. Written Examination Performance Over Past 10 years: Facility-Developed vs. NRC-Developed..................................................................................................................................... 9 Figure 14. Operating Examination Performance Over Past 10 years: Facility-Developed vs.
NRC-Developed............................................................................................................................ 9 Figure 15. Overall Examination Performance Over Past 10 years: Facility-Developed vs. NRC-Developed................................................................................................................................... 10 Figure 16. Overall Failure Rates................................................................................................. 10 Figure 17. Past 10 FYs Initial Exam Performance: Breakdown of Exam Failures...................... 11
3 Figure 1. Reactor Operators Written Exam Average Grades Figure 2. Reactor Operators Written Examination Pass-Rates
4 Figure 3. Reactor Operators Operating Test Pass-Rates Figure 4. Reactor Operators Overall Pass-Rates
5 Figure 5. Senior Reactor Operators Written Examination Overall Average Grades Figure 6 Senior Reactor Operators Written Examination, SRO-Only Section Average Grades
6 Figure 7. Senior Reactor Operators Written Examination Overall Pass-Rates Figure 8. Senior Reactor Operators Written Examination, SRO-only Section Pass-Rates
7 Figure 9. Senior Reactor Operators Operating Test Pass-Rates Figure 10. Senior Reactor Operators Overall Pass-Rates
8 Figure 11. Reactor Operators Written Examination Historical Performance Figure 12. Senior Reactor Operators Written Examination Historical Performance
9 Figure 13. Written Examination Performance Over Past 10 years: Facility-Developed vs. NRC-Developed Figure 14. Operating Examination Performance Over Past 10 years: Facility-Developed vs. NRC-Developed
10 Figure 15. Overall Examination Performance Over Past 10 years: Facility-Developed vs. NRC-Developed Figure 16. Overall Failure Rates
11 Figure 17. Past 10 FYs Initial Exam Performance: Breakdown of Exam Failures