STNA Content-Based Vocabulary Instruction for Certification Exam Success

Executive Summary

To become a STNA (State Tested Nursing Assistant) in the state of Ohio, a candidate
must complete a 75-hour course that is certified by the Ohio Department of Health and pass
both a written and skills test administer by the state. In order to be certified and listed in the
Ohio STNA Directory, candidates must pass written and skills tests. Academy graduates have
two years and three attempts to successfully pass the exam. The written test consists of 79
forced choice assessment items that requires students to be familiar with medical terminology,
abbreviations, basic healthcare verbiage and other forms of academic language used in the
assessments.
Approximately 40% of the students who enroll in the STNA program at Quality Care
Academy & Staffing have self-identified themselves as English Language Learners. According
the Director of Quality Care Academy & Staffing, many of these students struggle to pass the
written certification exam due to limited English proficiency. To address this existing
performance problem, Quality Care & Staffing is developing additional vocabulary acquisition
instruction to improve passage rates on the state certification exam.
According to theories dictating English language acquisition, language is divided into two
categories, Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic
Language Proficiency (CALP). Most of the vocabulary necessary to pass the exam and
communicate effectively in the STNA job setting is content specific academic language (CALP)
and can take several years master, depending on the circumstances of students’ English
language acquisition, placing them at a disadvantage completing a timed written exam.
The goal of this project is to remedy this concern by increasing students’ opportunities to
interact with content specific terms through intensive systematic vocabulary instruction to
increase passage rates on the STNA exam. Instructional strategies include word study involving
Latin and Greek word parts, visual representation, categorization, authentic word usage. The
primary audience are STNA students with limited English proficiency. Most are women and
many already have experience as home health aides and are attending this course to get better
and higher paying positions in the healthcare field. Students have limited access to outside
technology, except for smart phones, and the training facility does not provide laptops or tablets
for individual student use.
 Instruction will be a combination of teacher directed and self-paced using primarily
traditional paper-based resources. Ultimately, Quality Care Academy would like to develop a
smartphone application that would allow for self-paced interactive learning.