CASPer Assessment: Practical Nursing

Competitive Entry to Assiniboine’s Practical Nursing program

Assiniboine’s Practical Nursing program includes TakeAltus Suite's CASPer® assessment as a part of the competitive entry of its admissions process. This assessment enables applicants to demonstrate their personal competencies earlier on in the admission process.

Being a nurse is a moral undertaking. Assiniboine’s competitive entry admission process aims to admit students that are assessed for specific non-academic attributes or personal competencies, which are necessary to the nursing profession including collaboration, communication, empathy, equity, ethics, motivation, problem solving, professionalism, resilience, and self-awareness. These essential skills and abilities are identified to provide safe, competent, and ethical nursing care to meet the demands for a career as a Licensed Practical Nurse in Manitoba.

All applicants must meet Admission Requirements. Use the Program Application Checklist to help you collate your documents to ensure your application is complete prior to applying online.

WHAT IS CASPer®?

CASPer is a selection tool used by academic programs across North America to help assess applicants for non-academic attributes or personal competencies. It is not an Assiniboine-owned tool.

CASPer is a form of situational judgment test. Situational judgment tests are a type of psychological test that presents the test-taker with realistic, hypothetical scenarios and may ask the individual what they would do in the dilemma and why they would do it. Situational judgment tests tend to determine behavioral tendencies, assessing how an individual will behave in a certain situation, and knowledge instruction, which evaluates the effectiveness of possible responses.

CASPer® Test: This online test is 60-90 minutes in length and is made up of 12 sections. Each section contains a video-based or word-based scenario and three open-ended questions. Test takers have five minutes to type their answers to all three questions.

IMPORTANT: Full details about the test, including a video, can be found on the About CASPer website. Applicants are strongly encouraged to read the information about assessment preparation and FAQs. Applicants can ensure technical requirements are met and undertake a full practice assessment prior to their actual scheduled assessment.

Dates for applicants to Assiniboine’s Practical Nursing program for this portion of the assessment are noted below.

Once completed, the applicant is rated in 10 areas (collaboration, communication, empathy, equity, ethics, motivation, problem-solving, professionalism, resilience, and self-awareness), using a rubric and rating scale.

Each section of the test is scored by a unique rater, making the CASPer assessment a robust measure made up of many independent impressions of you. The group of raters reflects the diversity of the population. All raters are extensively trained, vetted, and invested in the future of the profession. An applicant’s final rating is always comprised of 12 unique rater impressions. Your responses are also completely anonymized, meaning raters only receive your typed reply and are not provided with any personal information (i.e. your name, age, photo, etc).

In the end, the ratings from all questions are totaled for an overall rating for each applicant. Ratings are sent to Assiniboine Community College by CASPer and considered during application review and decisions.

Applicants who apply to more than one location of the Practical Nursing program need only take one CASPer® assessment. Applicants are responsible for the cost of CASPer.

PLEASE NOTE - Snapshot video and DUET are not required for Assiniboine applicants.

When can I take CASPer®?

Applications for the 2022-23 academic year are closed.

Application test dates for 2023-24 intakes (September 2023 and January 2024) are as follows:

• Jan 19, 2023 - 5:00 PM EDT (4 PM in Manitoba)
• Feb 2, 2023 - 8:00 PM EDT (7 PM in Manitoba)
• Feb 21, 2023 - 8:00 PM EDT (7 PM in Manitoba)
• Mar 2, 2023 - 8:00 PM EDT (7 PM in Manitoba)
• Apr 6, 2023 - 8:00 PM EDT (7 PM in Manitoba)
• May 2, 2023 - 5:00 PM EDT (4 PM in Manitoba)

Select Undergraduate Nursing and the CSP-10202 Canadian Undergraduate Health Sciences test

You will need your Assiniboine Student ID to register for CASPer. IMPORTANT - Ensure you enter your Assiniboine student ID accurately to ensure the CASPer score is assessed to your Student ID. If you do not use the correct number, your score will not link to your application.

Fees are paid directly to CASPer. Specific details can be found on CASPer’s Dates and Fees webpage.

Refer to the Admissions Tab of assiniboine.net/nursing for application dates for the 2023-24 academic year.

Note: All registration, fees, and any accommodation requests are direct with CASPer®. Please refer to the CASPer® website, and contact CASPer® if you have questions on these items or the test itself.

Casper dates for applicants planning to apply for programs starting in the 2023-24 academic year have not been set.

For questions about Assiniboine’s admissions process, please visit assiniboine.net/admissions and assiniboine.net/nursing. If your question is not answered here, email admissions@assiniboine.net.