National Medical Licensing Examination (NMLE) in Japan: Reports from the Committee for Improvement of NMLE and Subsequent Research

Abstract

Context: As a contribution to this special issue of the journal featuring the computerization of the national medical licensing examination (NMLE), this paper seeks to explore the steps to shift the NMLE toward computer-based testing (CBT). Objectives: The purpose of this paper is to explore the movement of the NMLE toward CBT over the last 20 years and the merits and demerits of computerizing the NMLE. Methods: To explore the contents of committees' reports on the improvement of the NMLE, which have been held almost every five years. We also report the results of research we conducted on the computerization of NMLE. The research was supported by a grant from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW). Discussion: The former part of this paper explores the reports by the committees to improve the NMLE from 2011 onward. The latter half of this paper focuses on the result of our research from 2018 to 2020, favoring the computerization of NMLE based on the analysis of the merits and demerits of CBT.