J Educ Eval Health Prof.  2004 Jan;1(1):5-14.

A Pychometric Approach to Setting a Passing Score on Korean National Medical Licensing Examination

• Lee G

Abstract

National Health Personnel Licensing Examination Board (hereafter NHPLEB) has used 60% correct responses of overall tests and 40% correct responses of each subject area test as a criterion to give physician licenses to satisfactory candidates. The 60%-40% criterion seems reasonable to laypersons without pychometric or measurement knowledge, but it may causes several severe problems on pychometrician's perspective. This paper pointed out several problematic cases that can be encountered by using the 60%-40% criterion, and provided several pychometric alternatives that could overcome these problems. A fairly new approach, named Bookmark standard setting method, was introduced and explained in detail as an example. This paper concluded with five considerations when the NHPLEB decides to adopt a pychometric standard setting approach to set a cutscore for a licensure test like medical licensing examination.

Keyword

Licensure and Certificate Testing; Bookmark Standard Setting; Cutscore; ltem Response Theory; Scaling; Equating; Validity; Pychometrics

MeSH Terms

Health Personnel
Humans
Licensure*