title: Standard setting in a small scale OSCE: a comparison of the Modified Borderline-Group Method and the Borderline Regression Method.
abstract: When setting standards, administrators of small-scale OSCEs often face several challenges, including a lack of resources, a lack of available expertise in statistics, and difficulty in recruiting judges. The Modified Borderline-Group Method is a standard setting procedure that compensates for these challenges by using physician examiners and is easy to use making it a good choice for small scale OSCEs. Unfortunately, the use of this approach may introduce a new challenge. Because a small scale OSCE has a small number of examinees, there may be few examinees in the borderline range, which could introduce an unintentional bias. A standard setting method called The Borderline Regression Method will be described. This standard setting method is similar to the Modified Borderline-Group Method but incorporates a linear regression approach allowing the cut score to be set using the scores from all examinees and not from a subset. The current study uses confidence intervals to analyze the precision of cut scores derived from both approaches when applied to a small scale OSCE.
authors.affiliation: Medical Council of Canada and Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, K1G-3H7, ON, Ottawa, Canada. twood@mcc.ca
authors.forename: Timothy J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Wood
authors.forename: Susan M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Humphrey-Murto
authors.forename: Geoffrey R
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Norman
mesh_terms: D015982:Bias; D004501:Education, Medical; D004521:Educational Measurement / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D009864:Ontario