ROLE OF STANDARD SETTING IN INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT

Abstract

A standard, also known as the minimum pass level, separates the competent students from those who are not. The process of determining this special score is called standard setting.1 The decision to pass or fail an examinee is an important issue in medical education, especially for licensure and credentialing purposes.2 The standard should not be set in an arbitrary way but it should be established through a specific methodology that considers the test’s objectives and content areas, the examinees’ performance, and the wider social or educational setting.3 It is the methodology used to define levels of achievement or proficiency and the cut-scores /PASS MARK corresponding to those levels.4 Unless the cut-scores are appropriately set, the results of the assessment could come into question. If standard setting is done proper the competent students will pass and incompetent will fail or do not qualify but the problem arises when standard setting is not done and actual cut-off or pass score is not determined in this case competent students may fail and incompetent may pass. There are two types of standard setting, it may be Norm- referenced (relative) or Criterion-referenced (Table explain the difference in both).5

When we decide the passing/cut-off score it means we set the standard of a particular exam and the scientific method of determining the actual cut-off score of an exam is the standard setting.6,7 Typically, previous standard setting methods that were used to set the pass/fail point have been Absolute & fixed where a particular score or a % that has been determined prior to administering the test is set as the pass mark: e.g. 50% or Relative & not fixed: students are compared with each other & those who fail are “X†SDs below the mean performance of all candidates.8
But the problem with these method is that Absolute & fixed ignores error variance due to unwanted variation in the quality of teaching & the test and the Relative & not fixed method ignores error variance due to sampling (the reference group). Due to this sometime competent students may fail or incompetent may pass.